Following adverse publicity on a series of train accidents, including the recent Utkal Express mishap near Khatuali, the government has come to the rescue of the Railway Ministry.

Government sources said that while every death in accident was unfortunate, incidence of train accidents had come down significantly since the BJP-led NDA regime came to power.

The number of accidents declined-from 135 in 2014-15 to 104 in 2016-17, sources said.

For the Railways, safety remains one of the prime concerns.

The government has even created a Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh in 2017-18 for financing critical safety-related works.

Sources also said the government had accepted 68 recommendations of the Anil Kakodar Committee, of which over 50 had been implemented.

No money has been diverted from the corpus of the high-speed bullet train project, the sources said, adding that the high-speed train was the “safest mode” of travel in the world.