Apropos ‘Ethical fashion is chic’ (June 21), indeed fashion industry in consonance with environment protection must ensure good working conditions to their workers especially in providing protection to workers who handle dye and other chemicals.

Also they must take steps to recycling practices, low emissions and reducing cotton waste.

Reducing the green house gas emissions is also vital for the environment.

NR Nagarajan

Sivakasi

Rly safety concerns

The article ‘Railways safety going off-track?’ (June 21), depicts the painful and appaling state of affairs in the Railways. The writer rightly doubts whether gaps in information, lack of real time alert generation leveraging available data and proactive response all added to endanger safety.

The slow progress of Kavach installation is also a matter of concern, especially at a time the Railways has been getting huge investments.

The author’s advocacy not to take shelter behind statistics of lowering of accidents and aim for ‘zero-fatality’ should be a creed to all up the hierarchy : time for IR to wake up.

Jose Abraham

Vaikom (Kerala)

Apropos, ‘Railway safety going off-track?’ , as more than 22 million passengers on an average travel in 13,000-plus passenger trains daily, we can’t afford to be lax on safety. The recent disaster involving the Sealdah Kanchanjungha Express and a goods train in West Bengal shouldn’t have happened.

However, the much flaunted anti-collision system, Kavach, is currently operational on only 1,400-odd km of rail track, with plans to extend coverage by another 3,000 km by end-2024. Indian Railways has cited costs and practical challenges for the tardy progress but that hardly cuts any ice. There can be no compromise on passenger safety.

N Sadhasiva Reddy

Bengaluru

RBI’s valid worries

Apropos ‘RBI’s timely action helped moderate unsecured credit growth, says Das’ (June 21). Banks need to deploy their money on high-yielding assets.

Accordingly, retail lending, credit card businesses and lending to NBFCs are the areas where banks earn higher interest compared to other advances. At the same time there is higher amount of risk involved on these unsecured consumer loans and loans to NBFCs forcing banks to make higher provisions on these loans.

The banks therefore are forced to reduce their exposure to unsecured lendings resulting in declining outstanding balances under these heads as on April ‘ 24.

The RBI policy is therefore certainly correct in this direction as uncontrolled lendings to unsecured loans also create recovery problems involving huge provisions to cover the potential risks associated with them. Viable and proper monitoring of lending is the need of the hour.

Katuru Durga Prasad Rao

Hyderabad