 India witnessed one of its biggest train accidents last week. 275 people died and over 1,000 were injured in the accident involving three trains, the Shalimar Chennai Coromandel Express, Bangaluru Havra Superfast Express and a goods train. The trains collided near the Bahanagar Bazaar station in Balasore district of the state of Urissa around 7 p.m. on Friday. The first collision happened when the Coromandel Express rammed a stationary goods train and derailed. Following this, the Havra Superfast Express hit the derailed bogies of Coromandel Express and also went off the rails. An investigation is currently going on. Preliminary reports indicate signalling issues as the reason for the crash. However, the accident has also led to questions about structural issues with the Indian railways. Is the rail system sufficiently prepared to avoid such accidents? Indian railways is owned by the government. It is the fourth largest national railway system in the world by size and second largest in size if we consider passenger miles. It had 1.38 million employees as of March 2021, making it the world's 10th largest employer. According to a government report published in 2021, the various zones of the railways did not complete enquiries into derailment cases in time in 49% of the cases. It also revealed that the Indian railways neglected workforce vacancies and managed them through nominal outsourcing. Furthermore, the data shows that out of the total 217 accidents between the years 2017 and 2021, 75% were derailments. 211 accidents were attributed to signal failure. The report also acknowledged that essential safety measures were being disregarded, while funds were being allocated to non-priority projects instead of investing in rail safety. Well, there are many systemic issues that have been ignored for many many years and that is the reason for all these accidents that are occurring. In my opinion, the issue of railway safety is something as far as we are concerned, the most paramount. Your signalling systems have been under scrutiny and question mark for a long time, which is what this accident apparently is also leading up to the same signalling failure, a managed signal failure or a fault of whatever it is, that we will have to wait and see what the probe will say. But the fact is that from 2017, there has been a task force that was appointed by the railways and its report is in public domain and they had warned very seriously that there is an urgent necessity to address the issue of track renewals and also the issue of your, no, there is a signalling, the systems etc, generally talking in terms of saying that many of these issues connected with railway safety need to be urgently addressed. The government wants to cut costs and instead outsource it to private companies. Okay. 3.12 lakh posts lying vacant in the railways and that is what? Non-gazetted posts, which means these are the people who actually do the groundwork. That's right. The gangmen, which we already mentioned and all those who actually physically man all your signal points and that is where the safety is all, that is where the safety is all connected with, whether your bolts are in place on the track. If one of them is loose, the train derails, whether the signalling systems are working all right. Like now, the speculation about this gruesome accident is that the signal was given to travel on the main line but it was withdrawn and suddenly the Coromandel Express went on to the loop line. The loop line is the line where many trains are stationary. Right. Also, I mean mostly good trains. Okay. So there is now, again speculation all this, only a proper inquiry will prove what's happened. That it went and crashed into one stationary train, derailed and then that crashed into the third train coming in and mayhem happened. And this sort of overcrowdedness in the Coromandel Express, it's actually heart-rending passengers who reserve their seats in the reserve compartments. They have sent out videos of complaints to the minister before the accident, just before the accident, asked maybe over minutes before the accident saying that this is the state of this bogey. You see, the Indian railways was one thing that made everybody uniform from your poorest of the person who could travel in undeserved compartment to the richest who could travel in AC first class etc. On the same train. Yes. So you had that egalitarian, this thing on. So now what have you done? You are eliminating all these passenger trains which cater to the poor and instead focusing on your high-speed trains which the poor cannot access. They are too expensive. So that is it. In Indian railways, also you are creating two Indians. Everywhere else you are doing it. But in Indian railways, also which so far has not been subjected to that sort of an insult. So now the net result is, you see railways is the lifeline for crores of Indians. They get on to their passenger, local passenger train, get off some place, sell their milk, sell their vegetables, sell their things etc. Come back on the train and that's how their lives and they sustain crores and crores of people. Now you deny them that. Then this is what happens in reserve compartments. They will come and occupy. Then what? It will be a learned order of the situation. That's what you'll create. So please focus on providing facilities for people to travel rather than on very publicity oriented high-speed trains which only the rich can access.