Worried over the increasing number of accidents, the Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu convened a special meeting of General Managers on “Safety in Rail Operations” here on Tuesday.

The senior Railway management calculated an amount of ₹1 lakh crore for strengthening the safety mechanism and decided to approach the government for money.

The meeting also discussed various methods before the Railways to avoid accidents such as collision of trains, derailing and on managing unmanned level crossings. There have been 52 accidents in the last six months.

Railway Board Chairman AK Mital told reporters after the meeting that all steps are being taken to address the situation. He said the Railways is adopting various options and to implement such measures, an amount of ₹1 lakh crore may have to be generated.

Comprehensive safety plan He said the Board is also looking at cheaper technological methods to ensure safety, particularly at unmanned crossings. “We are preparing a comprehensive safety plan, which includes elimination of all level crossings, strengthening of the track and bridges, among others and it would cost about ₹1 lakh crore,” Mital said.

The Minister urged the senior Railway management to take a “professional” approach in checking accidents. He asked them to go to the basics and find out a correct solution to the problems.

He maintained that safety is the top-most priority in railway operations and asked the General Managers to personally oversee that the safety measured are followed properly.

The Minister said that no excuses for lapses are acceptable, a release from the Ministry said.

Safety audits The Minister said the Board should conduct strong safety audits at all levels on regular intervals and concrete action should be taken on those reports in a time-bound manner. “We need to improve supervision, inspection, monitoring and periodical review of safety measures,” he told the General Managers.

He said the government will strive for zero accident mission and a roadmap and comprehensive action plan will be prepared for that. “The Minister said that we need to pull up our socks to ensure that the railway’s system functions efficiently and safely all the time,” the release added.

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