NEW DELHI, OCT 29: There has been "gross under-reporting" of cases of accidents by zonal railways to the Railway Board and by the board to parliament, according to the latest report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG).In its report ended March 1998, presented to parliament today, CAG said of the 14,000 accidents between 1993-94 and 1997-98, only 3,157 accidents (22.53 per cent) were reported to the Railway Board. The board in turn reported 218 accidents (15.62 per cent) to parliament through its annual reports.The CAG said though the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) was yet to inquire into all "serious accidents" out of 2,274 serious accidents during this period, only 126 (5.54 per cent) were probed by CRS.The CAG also found that none of the four "important safety aids", identified by different committees over the past 20 years, "has been fully implemented".The report said of the 1,529 stations required to be track circuited on "A and B" routes on eight zonal railways tillMarch 31, 1998, "track circuiting had been completed only in 911 stations".
