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Mallikarjun Kharge On Odisha Train Accident: Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday (June 4) made serious allegations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding the Odisha train accident. He said, “PM Modi is busy flagging off trains without paying attention to rail safety.” He demanded, “There is a need to fix accountability of all posts from top to bottom to prevent such incidents in future.”
Kharge tweeted about the incident and said, “The PR gimmick has hollowed out the functioning of the system.” Referring to the three lakh vacant posts in the Railways, the Congress President said, “The posts of senior officials recruited by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) are also vacant. In the last nine years (nine years of the Modi government at the Centre) Why were these posts not filled. The Railway Board itself has recently accepted that long working hours of loco pilots (train drivers) due to acute shortage of human resources is the main reason for the increasing number of accidents.”
“Why Kavach only on 4% routes”
Mallikarjun Kharge said, “The train collision avoidance system developed by India’s Research Design and Standards Organization (RDSO) in 2011 was renamed by the Modi government as ‘Kavach’ and in March 2022, the Railway Minister himself demonstrated it. Why has armoring been done on only 4 percent of the routes so far?” Referring to the Vande Bharat trains, he said, “Modi ji, you are busy flagging off whitewashed trains every day, but pay no attention to rail safety.”
The Congress President claimed that the Principal Chief Operations Manager of the South Western Railway (SWR) Zone (Area) had requested to repair the signaling system on February 8, 2023, referring to the two trains that had survived a collision in Mysuru. Kharge questioned, “Why didn’t the Ministry of Railways implement it.”
“Government ignores CAG report”
The Congress President said, “According to the latest audit report of the CAG, between 2017-18 and 2020-21, almost seven out of 10 train accidents were due to derailment of trains. In East Coast Railway from 2017 to 2021 Zero testing of track maintenance for safety.” He alleged that this report was sidelined by the government. According to the CAG, why 79 percent funding was reduced in the National Rail Safety Fund, while Rs 20,000 crore was to be made available every year. He questioned, “Why has there been a decrease in the amount of renovation of railway tracks?”
At least 275 people died and the number of injured is 1175 in the train accident that took place on Friday (June 2) evening in Balasore, Odisha. This is the worst train accident in the country in the last three decades. The accident involved the Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express, the Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express and a goods train.
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