Opinion Lessons from Balasore

The crash involving the Chennai-bound Coromandel Express, the SMVT Bengaluru-Howrah Express and a goods train near Balasore in Odisha Friday, is one of the worst train accidents in recent times. The death count, at 275, and the number of injured at over 1,000, 500 of them being treated at various hospitals, underline how so many lives have been changed for ever, the tragedy’s colossal sense of grief and loss. What’s shone in this dark has been the speed and scale of the search and rescue operation: The institutional response, which involved personnel from the NDRF, the Army, IAF, fire services, ODRAF as well as local volunteers, all working round the clock to help pick up the pieces and to get operations back on track. What next is critical — and should be closely watched. How will responsibility be fixed, will this tragedy prompt structural changes, if needed, and, most significantly, what will be the learnings from this?

Of late, the Indian Railways has seen a visible improvement on various parameters. For 2023-24, its capital outlay was pegged at a staggering Rs 2.4 lakh crore. It has also undergone a massive electrification drive in recent years, with around 90 per cent of its route being electrified. As per official estimates, accidents per million train kilometres have declined from 0.1 in 2013-14 to 0.03 in 2021-22. The number of derailments has also gone down, as have accidents at level crossings. In its performance audit on derailment in Indian Railways, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India had noted that around 75 per cent of the 217 consequential train accidents between 2017-18 and 2020-21 were due to derailments. And one of the major factors responsible for derailments was related to “maintenance of tracks”.

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Attention has now turned to what could have led to the Odisha derailment. The exact cause will be known only after the inquiry by the Commissioner of Railways is completed. However, Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said Sunday that the “root cause” of the accident and the people responsible for it have been identified. He has suggested a link to the change in the machine that decides the configuration of the track. Considering delays in the past — as per the CAG report, in 63 per cent cases the inquiry reports were not submitted to the accepting authority within the prescribed timelines and in 49 per cent of the cases there was a delay in accepting the report — the inquiry into Friday’s accident should be comprehensive, thorough and independent. And then it needs to be promptly put forth in the public domain for wider discussion and analyses. It should also inform and determine the institutional response to this tragedy. As the government works to build railway infrastructure, as the formidable ramp-up of Vande Bharat across the country becomes a key element of this, lessons from Balasore need to be understood and, more importantly, acted upon. With fairness and transparency, accountability needs to be fixed, howsoever high that process may reach. That’s the only way to pay tribute to the lives lost and impaired by Friday’s tragedy. For, infrastructure upgrade means little if it doesn’t mean an upgrade in the quality of life — and its safety.