The Indian Railway Minister, Dinesh Trivedi has accepted the demand recommended by the Kakodkar Committee to set up Railway Safety Authority.
The new authority will be an independent and statutory regulatory body of Indian Railways, which will work in line with international practices in the best interest of passenger safety.
While presenting the 2012-13 railway budget, the minister said, “Research and development activities are central to any tangible results in the area of safety enhancement and also proposed to set up a Railway Research and Development Council at the apex level to spearhead such efforts, which will strengthen rail safety.”
Admitting that he is not satisfied with the safety standard today, the Minister said the commitment made in 2001 to reduce accidents per million train km from 0.55 to 0.17 have been achieved, however, the target should be zero death.
The Minister said that more than 40 per cent of the consequential train accidents, involving 60 per cent to 70 per cent of the total casualties occur at unmanned railway crossings.
To fast track elimination of level crossings in the next five years, the railways have decided to set up a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) named Rail-Road Grade Separation Corporation of India, the minister added.
In order to achieve even higher safety standards, Railways has decided to set up a committee to examine the current standards of safety on Indian Railways and to suggest suitable benchmarks and safety protocols.
The minister said, three Safety Villages to be set up at Bengaluru, Kharagpur and Lucknow for skill development for disaster management.
