Barely a month has passed since the catastrophic Balasore rail accident, the worst Indian Railways mishap in 28 years. The Commissioner of Rail Safety (CRS) has submitted a report on the mishap, involving Coromandel and Bangalore-Howrah expresses and a goods train. The country is still recovering from the trauma of the loss of nearly 300 lives and a thousand injured.

It appears that the interlocking of signals was tampered with by a manual intervention. As a result, while the Coromandel Express was signalled to pass through the main line, its route was set to an occupied loop line, resulting in a three-way collision.

In the normal course, the interlocking of signals and routes is fail-safe; it is a system of relays and logic gates which directs a train to the right route — within the criss-cross of railway tracks such that it would never run into the head or rear of another train. This electrical cum electronic system ensures that if a route has been determined for one train, no other train can come on that route.

Two investigations were ordered, the statutory one by the CRS as well as by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Engaging CBI in a railway accident was unprecedented and the Opposition saw it as a tactic to divert attention towards a phantom sabotage, diluting the culpability of IR’s own staff and management. This brings to mind the 2016 Kanpur rail accident, with fatalities of 160 passengers.

The report of the NIA, which was roped in for investigations, is not out even today. The present investigations arguably rule out sabotage, confirming my views at the very start. However, I refrained from calling the CBI probe a red herring. To be fair to the government, it might have wanted to rule out the foul play angle.

Things have become clearer since. Even as the CRS and CBI were carrying out their enquiry and investigation, including extensive interrogation of signal maintenance and Station staff by CBI, large-scale transfer of senior IR officers — the Additional General Manager, many Principal HoDs and the Divisional Railway Manager — was ordered. This pointed to a serious lapse by IR staff.

The CRS has since submitted his report, which has been leaked but IR has decided not to go public with it to ensure that it does not influence the CBI probe.

However, the report has been leaked out. It is amply indicated that a series of gross human errors caused the accident: (i) Erroneous signalling circuit alteration and wrong labelling in 2018 of this fault and mismatch, with this escaping detection in multiple functional tests since then; (ii) Improper procedure and execution of level crossing work on the day of the accident; (iii) Failure of the station staff to react to unusual behaviour of crossover indication.

What is shocking is that an error in the circuit and its labelling, with the potential to cause an accident, had existed since 2018. A similar fault in the same zone at Kharagpur was not treated by the zonal management with any seriousness.

Within no time of the submission of the report, the General Manager of the zone was transferred, and the CBI arrested two senior signal supervisors and a technician on the charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. A group of staff seem to have been complicit in a criminally-negligent or casual short-cutting of procedures but there does not seem to be any criminal intent for sabotage.

Meanwhile, the hoopla of inaugurating new Vande Bharats and presenting images of future glitzy stations is back. The Centre should act on the safety issue as well. While the management and staff should be sensitised on a war footing to total unacceptance of irregular working with drastic punitive measures, especially for those at the top, the following actions should be taken:

Short term, one month: A one-time drive with IR’s own safety team comprising signalling personnel supplemented by staff drafted from other departments at each and every station to conduct functional checks of circuits as well as physical verification of on-site circuits with completion drawings.

Medium term, 6 months: Repeat the above in a more comprehensive manner by third parties specially contracted for the job.

Long term, one to two years: Using AI to bring rail safety on firmer ground. Massive data related to train running from station data-loggers and powerful microprocessors on rolling stock is available but cocooned in departmental silos, which can be collated for daily past mortems as well alerts.

The writer is Retd. General Manager/Indian Railways and Leader of Train 18/Vande Bharat

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