New Delhi, July 12: Under attack following a series of train mishaps, Railway Minister Nitish Kumar today said every railwayman from lower level to chairman were responsible for such accidents and mooted a 10-year (2003-13) Indian Railway Safety Plan to overcome them. "Everybody working in the railways, from gaugemen to chairman are accountable for a derailment and accident. If such a responsibility is fixed, railway would not run," Kumar said while speaking at a two-day workshop on safety on Indian Railways organised by the ministry.
Expressing serious concern over derailments and a number of other accidents in the recent past, Kumar suggested that the workshop should be conducted to discuss threadbare the safety concerns and prepare a comprehensive corporate safety plan for the next 10 years. Besides national office bearers of five federations of the Indian Railways and general managers of the nine zones, over signalling inspectors and workshop staff at the cutting-edge of rail safety are attending the workshop.
Calling spade a spade, Kumar said while railway minister was being abused for every derailment and other accidents and railway staff at lower level punished, "it was yet to be ascertained whether these derailments or accidents are due to human failure or management failure". He criticised senior railway officials for operating through mobile phones rather than visiting their offices and necessitated continuous watch on the maintenance and upkeep of track whose renewal was a tremendous task for the ministry. Bureau Report