New Delhi: Congress party has released a detailed statement on the Odisha train tragedy – which has killed 275 people – with party leader Jairam Ramesh calling the incident “beyond headline politics” and something that goes to the core of railway safety and track renewals. The statement has also repeated the call for the railway minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw’s resignation.In his tweet with the statement, Ramesh notes that safety has taken a backseat to high profile inaugurations and an obsession with speed.Here’s our detailed statement on the Odisha train tragedy. It goes well beyond headline politics to the very core of how rail safety & track renewals have taken a backseat, while high-profile inaugurations & an obsession with speed get priority. It raises 3 fundamental questions. pic.twitter.com/XdcJdsOIeV— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) June 4, 2023“This is not a natural calamity. This is a man-made devastation caused by utter negligence, serious lapses in the system, incompetence, and a narcissistic sense of “know it all” attitude by the Modi government, clubbed with high decibel PR which exposed the hollowness at every level of railway government.“Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, who has announced that guilty would be punished, must first start with his Railway Minister. Unequivocally and unambiguously, we demand the resignation of the Union railway minister, Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw. Nothing short of it,” the statement reads.The statement lists reasons behind the party’s call to demand accountability from the Modi government, first among which is the alleged “criminal neglect of the signalling system, despite multiple warnings.”“On 9th February 2023, the Principal Chief Operating manager of South Western Railway zone raised concerns of signal failure of an express train on the subject,” Congress said, adding that the manager said the incident indicates that “there are serious flaws in the system where the route of dispatch gets altered after a train starts on signals with correct appearance of route in the SMS panel. This contravenes the essence and basic principles of interlocking.”He also asked for the signal maintenance system to be monitored and corrected immediately, and warned of “re-occurrence and serious accidents.”Congress also noted the preliminary investigation team’s finding that a “flip-flop” in signalling of the Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express, which was first allowed to pass through the Up Main Line but then barred, is what led to utter devastation.The statement also said that the parliamentary standing committee on transport, tourism and culture, in its 323rd report had slammed the railways for an apparent disregard shown towards the Commission of Railway Safety’s recommendations.The statement also cited “multiple officials” who were at a Chintan Shivir or brainstorming session headed by minister Vaishnaw just hours before the accident, and said that presentations on railway safety were allegedly skipped.A railway official pointed to the alarming increase in derailment of goods trains, which were disregarded and failed to raise alarms.CAG report on deficiencies in the Modi government’s railway managementThe party also highlighted the CAG report which has been reported on by The Wire earlier in the day. In it, the auditor said that almost seven out of 10 rail accidents between 2017-18 and 2020-21 were derailments triggered by track defects, engineering and maintenance issues and operating errors.Read: CAG Report on Derailments Hard to Square With PMO Claims on Prioritising Rail SafetyIt cited the CAG report to note how the Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh was created in 2017-18 with a corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore over a period of five years with an annual outlay of Rs 20,000 crore but that the “short deployment of funds by Railways from internal resources to the tune of Rs 15,775 crore (78.88%) out of the total share of Rs 20,000 crore had defeated the primary objective” of the Kosh – for railway safety.The allotment of funds for track renewal work has also seen a decline, the report said.Vacant positionsThe statement also noted that a Right to Information request has revealed that more than 3.11 lakh posts out of the nearly 15 lakh Group C posts and 3,018 out of the 18,881 gazetted cadre positions are lying vacant in the Indian Railways.A majority of the railway zones lack basic human resources, Congress claimed.KavachThe statement also touched upon the train collision avoidance system developed by the Research Designs and Standards Organisation in 2011-12 and renamed ‘Kavach’ by the Modi government. Congress claimed that despite Vaishnaw’s praises of Kavach, none of the trains in the Odisha clash were equipped with it.Only 4% of the sanctioned 35,736 kms of high-density network were covered by Kavach, the party said.Today Vaishnaw, reported the news agency PTI, denied that the incident had anything to do with Kavach, but refused to elaborate.“This accident occurred due to changes to the electronic interlocking system. The remarks of (West Bengal chief minister and former railway minister) Mamata Banerjee are not true,” Vaishnaw said.Congress ended its statement with three questions. Below, they are directly quoted.When is PM Modi demanding the resignation from his Railway Minister Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw, who’s over the top publicity, theatrics and PR gimmicks overshadowed the serious deficiencies, criminal negligence and complete disregard for safety and security of Indian Railways?PM Modi, himself is responsible for this green-flagging spree of Vande Bharat Express trains. He himself is responsible in creating this “All-is-Well” façade in the Indian Railways, even as crucial, sensitive, and critical infrastructure of the Indian Railway languishes in neglect. We demand that PM Modi should accept part of the responsibility of this mess which his Govt has inflicted on the Indian Railways and our people.Despite multiple warnings by the CAG, Parliamentary Standing Committees, and experts – why did the Modi Govt did not spend on sprucing up Railway Safety? Who is responsible for this deadliest rail tragedy in independent India? Would only lower or mid-level functionaries bear the brunt of accountability or will the executive who takes all the credit for Vande Bharat trains also be held accountable for this brazen disregard for safety standards?When is the Modi Govt taking the following steps :(i)Implementing the much-hyped KAVACH Anti-Collision system nationwide, after testing?(ii)Pumping more funds in the Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh (RRSK)?(iii) Filling up the 3 lakh plus vacant positions in the Indian Railways?
