Taking into account the rise in number of railway accidents,the Bombay High Court on Monday urged the railways to constitute a separate department and appoint adequate number of staff to provide medical aid to accident victims. The court was hearing a petition filed by Samir Zaveri on the lack of swift medical aid by the railway authorities. Zaveri had lost his legs in a railway accident 20 years ago. Petitioners lawyer Jamshed Cama said that there were no ambulance services and the injured were not rushed immediately to the nearby government or private hospitals by the railways. The railways had earlier assured this before the court,he said. He also said that funds sanctioned were not being used to provide medical aid to the railway accident victims. Hearing the petition,Justice V M Kanade observed that the railways should constitute a department to deal with medical emergencies as accidents are happening on a daily basis. Counsel for the Western Railways Suresh Kumar said they would try and find a solution. Amicus Curie of the court Jamshed Mistry had produced a letter from the association of charitable hospitals which stated that these hospitals were ready to treat railway accident victims without considering their financial status. The judge said the solution to the problem should have ideally come from the railways itself. The court has asked all the parties to meet and chalk out some solutions before the next hearing on March 10. The court was also informed that the figures of track deaths have been contradicted by the railways. Last year,when the court had sought a report on the number of railway accident deaths,an affidavit was filed by the WR. It had submitted the number of deaths and injuries happened between 2003 and 2008 before the court. Interestingly,an RTI query had revealed that the figures shown in the affidavit was almost half the number shown in the RTI reply.
