Hitting out at the previous Congress governments, an unusually combative Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday accused the opposition party of amplifying small incidents on the railway network through its “social media troll army” to create fear among its two crore-plus passengers.
Replying to a debate on the Demand for Grants of Railways, Vaishnaw asserted that the Railways was the preferred mode of transport for the common man and the government has set in motion plans to produce an additional 2,500 general coaches in the coming months to address the issue of crowded trains.
He listed a series of steps such as introduction of Amrit Bharat trains comprising general and sleeper coaches with better facilities, having a recruitment calendar to fill in vacancies in railways and catering to the aspirational middle class with offerings such as Vande Bharat-class of trains.
Displaying rare aggression, Vaishnaw slammed the previous Congress governments for ignoring the safety aspects of the vast network by delaying the implementation of the automatic train protection system and also took a jibe at Rahul Gandhi for making reels with loco pilots.
“Hum reel banane wale log nahi, mehnat karne wale log hai (we are not the ones who make reels, but work with dedication),” Vaishnaw said, highlighting the dedication of his team over mere showmanship.
The opposition booed him as ‘reel minister’ and demanded his resignation in the wake of a series of railway accidents over the past couple of months.
“Those who are shouting here must be asked in their 58 years of being in power why they were not able to install Automatic Train Protection (ATP), even 1 km. Today, they dare to raise the questions,” Vaishnaw said.
Later, the opposition walked out of the Lok Sabha protesting the minister’s remarks.
Vaishnaw listed out initiatives taken by the government to improve safety on the railway network by eliminating unmanned level crossings, implementation of electronic inter-locking at railway stations for better management of train movements and introduction of Kavach, the automatic train protection system.
The minister said that expenditure on safety-related issues was Rs 98,414 crore in 2023-24, and this budget has allocated Rs 1,08,795 crore for the same.
“When Mamata Banerjee was the railway minister, she used to give the accident numbers that decreased from 0.24 to 0.19 these people used to clap in the House and today when it has decreased from 0.19 to 0.03, they put such blame,” Vaishnaw said.
On loco pilot regulations highlighted by Gandhi, he said, the average working and rest times for loco pilots were established by a rule in 2005 and amendments were introduced in 2016 to provide additional facilities.
He said the significant improvements made for loco pilots, including air-conditioning in all 558 running rooms and over 7,000 loco cabins, contrasted this with the previous administration’s perceived shortcomings.
Providing an update about the automatic train protection system, Vaishnaw said Kavach 4.0 received certification by the Research Designs and Standards Organisation on July 17 this year and three manufacturers of the system have scaled up their production capabilities.
However, the minister did not give any timeline for implementation of Kavach on the entire railways network, but mentioned that smaller countries having much smaller railways networks took more than 20 years to implement the automatic train protection system.
He said three manufacturers of the Kavach system have augmented their production facilities and two new manufacturers are also coming onboard.
More than 8,000 engineers and technicians have been trained and six universities have introduced Kavach in their syllabus, Vaishnaw said.
“Now, we are in such a situation that we can implement Kavach on a large scale. Tenders are in process for implementing Kavach on 9,000 km. In the next few months, we will start implementing Kavach 4.0 on 10,000 coaches,” the minister said.
The Lok Sabha approved the Demands for Grants of Railways to the tune of Rs 7.89 lakh crore.
Addressing concerns over allocations by Kerala, the minister said the state has been given Rs 3,011 crore from an average of Rs 372 crore per year during the UPA government.
Tamil Nadu’s allocation increased to Rs 6,362 crore from an average of Rs. 879 crore per year during the UPA years, Vaishnaw said.
The minister asked the two states to expedite land acquisition to speed up implementation of railway projects.
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