New Delhi: Indian Railways has recorded zero passenger deaths in rail accidents in 2019, making it the national transporter’s safest year in history, according to official data. However, there have been staff deaths.
In 2018-19, railways recorded 16 death, 28 deaths in 2017-2018 and 195 deaths during 2016-2017.
In the period from 1990-1995, an average of more than 500 accidents took place every year, with around 2,400 deaths and 4,300 injured. A decade later, between 2013-2018, an average of around 110 accidents took place every year which killed around 990 people and injured about 1,500 people the data has revealed.
Railway train accidents (consequential) include collision, derailment, fire, level crossing accidents and other miscellaneous mishaps. While calculating the casualty due to a train accident, the number of persons killed is taken into account. The casualty is further categorised into death of railway passenger, railway staff and others. However, Indian Railways does not count run over deaths as accidents in the list.
The Indian Railways has steadily improved its accident figures. While in 2017-2018, till March, there were 73 accidents, the first time the transporter achieved a two digit figure, the figure between April and December 15 in 2018 was 45.
In 2014-15 there were 50 accidents at unmanned level crossings, in 2015-16 it was 20, in 2016-17 10, in 2017-18 three and in 2018-19 three also.
The number of injured in these accidents have also come down over the years. In 2016-17, 365 people were injured in various train accidents. The number then came down to 195 in 2017-18 while in 2018-2019, the figure stands at 106.
It was during this period that 59 people were killed and about 100 were injured when a train ran over a crowd of spectators who were standing on the tracks watching the Dusshera festival in Amritsar.
Railways, however, maintained that this incident did not come under the umbrella of train accidents as the spectators were ‘encroaching’.
In 2019-20, there were no accidents involving passenger trains, but some derailments of goods trains have occurred. While 33 passengers were injured in the past 12 months, except the deaths of a few employees, no passenger deaths have been reported.
Railways said they have been able to achieve zero deaths on tracks in 2019 because of a slew of measures that have been undertaken over the last year. This included mega blocks for maintenance, use of modern machines in maintenance, removal of all unmanned level crossings, replacement of ICF coaches with LHB coaches, track renewal and signalling modernisation and more delegation of power to field level officers.
PTI