Kumar: Collision check

Jan. 20: Railway minister Nitish Kumar today launched the national project for installation of the anti-collision device (ACD) at Bihar’s Kishanganj, a project through which the railway hopes to bury the memories of the Gaisal tragedy.

Kumar said the Konkan Railway-invented ACD, dubbed Rakha Kabaj, an amulet guarding against danger, would be installed along the 52,000-kilometre track stretch of Indian Railways within the next five years.

Later while laying the foundation stone for an overbridge at Dalkhola in North Dinajpur, the minister said the railway had been trying to come up with a device that would check accidents ever since the Gaisal tragedy.

In August 1999, the Brahmaputra Mail had rammed into the Awadh-Assam Express near Gaisal station, killing 285 people and injuring more than 300. A report, on the causes of the accident, found faults with the railway staff and the system of working in the Katihar division of Northeast Frontier Railway.

“I had seen the devastation there (Gaisal) and since then, the railway has been working towards accident mitigation projects,” Kumar said.

The ACD, he said, would ensure continuous communication between trains, stations and even level-crossings.

Kumar added that his ministry had already replaced tracks in a 8,000-kilometre stretch and built 2,700 new bridges.

“We have set up the Railway Safety Fund in 2001 and upgraded the signal equipment in 13,000 stations across the country,” the minister said.

In the first phase of its implementation, the railway plans to install the ACDs along 1,736 kilometres of the railway track within the NFR by the end of this year. The microprocessor-based global positioning system-linked device would be fitted to engines, the guard’s bogie, the stations and level-crossings. The Indian Railways is said to have allotted Rs 50 crore for the NFR project.

“Most of these accidents occurred because of mistakes made by drivers or the railway staff. We hope to eliminate these errors with the installation of the ACDs,” the minister said.

He also inaugurated a platform at Kishanganj, which can fit in a train with 24 bogies, and laid the foundation stone for a new overbridge.

In his keynote address, member of the Railway Board S.P.S. Jain pointed out that 44 per cent of the bridges in the country holding railway lines were over 100 years old and needed to be replaced urgently.

“We will have a mobile equipment to check the health of tracks and bridges very soon as the funds to procure them have been sanctioned and the board is finalising the contracts,” Jain said.