Railways faced signalling failure 13 times in 5 yrs, 41 bodies in Balasore unidentified: Ashwini Vaishnaw

New Delhi: There have been 13 instances of signalling failure in the railways in the past five years but no incident due to defects in the interlocking signal system, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Friday in written responses to queries of MPs in Parliament.

He also informed the House that the remains of 41 persons killed in the Balasore accident are yet to be identified.

The minister responded to a barrage of queries from Rajya Sabha members related to the June 2 triple-train accident in Balasore in Odisha, in which 295 passengers lost their lives and 176 sustained grievous injuries.

The accident occurred when the Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express (12841) rammed into a stationary goods train and its coaches fell on the adjacent track and hit the Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast coming from the opposite direction.

In his written responses, Vaishnaw said the rear-collision was due to lapses in the signalling-circuit alteration carried out in the past and during the execution of the signalling work related to replacement of electric lifting barrier for a level-crossing gate.

"These lapses resulted in wrong signalling to the Train No. 12841 wherein the UP Home Signal indicated Green aspect for run-through movement on the UP main line of the station, but the crossover connecting the UP main line to the UP loop line (crossover 17 A/B) was set to the UP loop line; the wrong signalling resulted in the Train No. 12841 traversing on the UP loop line, and eventual rear-collision with the goods train (No. N/DDIP) standing there," he said.

In response to a question, the minister said, "In last 5 years, there have been no incidences due to defects in the interlocking signal system...No expert has pointed out any loopholes or deficiencies in interlocking signalling system of Railways."

In reply to a separate query, he said, "In the last five years, the total numbers of signalling failures leading to incidences are 13."

He said that the mortal remains of unidentified passengers have been retained in medically prescribed ways at AIIMS, Bhubaneshwar. DNA samples have been taken for analysis at CFSL, New Delhi.

"DNA analysis reports are maintained which can be matched with DNA of claimants as and when they arrive. Action to pay last respects to deceased passengers is being taken as per law and in consultation with medical professionals and law enforcement agencies (GRP and CBI)," he said.

Vaishnaw also informed the House that till July 16, Rs 29.49 crore has been paid as enhanced ex-gratia of Rs 10 Lakh each to the next of kin of each deceased, Rs 2 lakh each to the grievously injured and Rs 50,000 each to the passengers with simple injury.

As on July 13, as many as 258 claim cases have been received in various benches of the Railway Claims Tribunal, of which 51 claims have been disposed off, he said.

Rajya Sabha was also informed that the automatic train protection system, Kavach, has so far been deployed on 1,465 route km and 121 locomotives (including Electric Multiple Unit rakes) in the South Central Railway.

Kavach tenders have been awarded for Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah corridors (approximately 3,000 route km) and the work is in progress on these routes.

"Indian Railways is preparing Detailed Project Report (DPR) and detailed estimate for another 6,000 rkm. The amount spent so far on Kavach implementation is Rs 351.91 crore. The cost for provision of track side including Station equipment of Kavach is approximately Rs 50 Lakh/Km and cost for provision of Kavach equipment on loco is approximately Rs 70 lakh/ loco," he said, adding that efforts are being made to develop more vendors to enhance the capacity and scale up the implementation of Kavach.

Vaishnaw also said that from 2017-18 to 2021-22, an expenditure of Rs 1.08 lakh crore was incurred on Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh works. RRSK created in 2017-18 for execution of assessed safety works with a corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore over a period of five years.

He said there has been a steep decline in consequential train accidents from 473 in 2000-01 to 48 in 2022-23. The average number of consequential train derailments during 2004-14 was 86.7 per annum which reduced to 47.3 per annum during 2014-23.

(With PTI inputs.)