The document summarizes and debunks 5 myths about rail safety in India under the current government. 1) The number of train accidents and casualties have actually decreased under the current government, with train accidents reaching their lowest levels in 2016-2017 and casualties declining to 652 in the first 3 years of the current government compared to 759 and 938 in the previous governments. 2) The railways has not lost focus on safety but has taken actions like eliminating unmanned level crossings, increasing safety investments by 60%, reducing congestion, and adopting new safety technologies. 3) Claims that funds have been diverted to projects like bullet trains are untrue, as the bullet train is being fully funded

1. MYTH Vs REALITY
Is Railways Getting UNSAFE For The Citizens?
2000
0.65
2005
0.29
2015
0.10
Accidents per million train Kms.
Safety remains one of the prime concernsand priorities
for this Ministry

2. Myth No.1: Number Of Accidents Have Increased Under Suresh Prabhu
UPA I UPA II NDA
Train Accidents
No. of train accidents have actually decreased
under NDA- lowest in 2016-17 to115 The consequential train accidents have
continuously declined from 135 in 2014-15 to 107
in 2015-16 and further to 104 in 2016-17. To state a
comparison, the average annual accidents during
UPA I were 207/ year, during UPA II were 135/
year and during current government have
reduced to 115/ year
Although every human life is invaluable and is an
irreparable loss to us but the number of casualties
have also seen a declining trend. Total fatalities in
first 3 years of UPA I were 759, they increased
to 938 during UPA II, while the first thee years
of this government has seen the number
decline to 652UPA I UPA II NDA
207
135
115
759
938
652
Casualties
No. of casualties have actually decreasedunder
NDA to 652
REALITY

3. Myth No.2: Railways Has Lost Focus On Safety
REALITY
CONCERN: Analysis revealed that 40% of the accidents and 60% of fatalities were due to accidents on unmanned level
crossings in 2014
ADDRESSED: Mission Zero Accident was launched to ensure all Unmanned level crossings were eliminated by 2019. It has
seen unprecedented success, where we eliminated 4155 UMLCs, leading to drop in fatalities from UMLC accidents
from 64% of total fatalities in 2013-14 to 16.81% in 2016-17
CONCERN: State of infrastructure is an important constituent to safety performance. The infrastructure had been deteriorating
due to years of neglect, which requires huge investments
ADDRESSED: Investment In safety have increased from Rs33972 Crore per year during UPA II to Rs54031 Crore
every year under this government a jump of 60%
CONCERN: Congestion on tracks has some impact on safety
ADDRESSED: Reduction in congestion is achieved by infrastructure upgradation which again requires huge capital
expenditure. Under this government,by the end of year we would be spending about Rs 4 lakh crore on infrastructure
creation. In last 67 years since independence (1947- 2014) capital investment of Rs 4.9 lakh crore was made on Indian
Railways
In 2017-18, a Fund namely ‘Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh’ (RRSK) has been created for financing critical safety related
works. The Fund has been created with a corpus of `1 lakh crore over a period of five years
Decision to stop production of ICF coaches, the main stay of Indian Railways Passenger Business for many years, and
having no anti-climbing features was taken in 2015-16
Existing stock of 40,000 ICF coaches (90% of total coaches) cannot be discarded and hence is being retrofitted with CBC
couplers to make them safer
New technologies like Condition based monitoring system for rolling stock and Track and UltrasonicBroken Rail
Detection System are being piloted on the network
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4. Myth No.3: Railways has diverted funds to develop fancy projects like Bullet
Train
REALITY
Indian Railways has unflinching commitment to the poor and the downtrodden
as can be seen by a few examples:
• Passenger fares are still amongst the lowest in the entire world. In fact,
Indian Railways subsidises passenger and suburban travel to the tune of
almost Rs36,000 Crore annually
• Antyodaya express – fully unreserved, super fast trains with enhanced
amenities such as drinking water, vestibule trains, LHB coaches etc were
launched only to cater to unreserved segment
o Re1 clinic were launched at important suburban stations
o Indian Railways ensures availability of Janta meals at all major stations
• High speed train from Mumbai to Ahmedabad is being funded by Japan
Government with less than 20% contribution from Government of India
• This money, which came at incredibly attractive terms (0.1% rate of
interest) was made available ONLY for this high speed project and
was NOT available to fund safety projects for Indian Railways
• Moreover, high speed train is the safest mode of transport in the world.
Hence, the government has not diverted any funds from existing corpus

5. Myth No.4: Number of vacancies in safety has increased since 2014
18.65%
(2009-14)
16.86%
(2017)
REALITY
During the current government we have recruited
37,510 people in the safety categories taking the
total staff strength to 6,35,940 on 1.04.2017
Average vacancy in safety positions during the
period 2009-10 to 2013-14 was 18.65% of total
sanctioned strength
This has dropped down to 16.86% in 2017 despite
the sanctioned strength increasing by 5% from 2014
to 2017
Sanction strength
(Increased by 37,510 to 6,35,940)
Average Vacancy
(Reduced by to 16.86% in 2017)

6. Myth No.5: No action taken on safety reports
REALITY
High Level Safety Review Committee had made
106 recommendations on various aspects of
railway’s working
Out of 106, 68 recommendations have been fully
accepted out of which 52 have been fully
implemented and 16 are under implementation
19 recommendations were partially accepted out
of which 13 have been implemented
19 recommendations were not accepted by the
Railways
10,668 recommendationsfully accepted
52/ 10,668 recommendationsfully
implemented
19 recommendationspartially accepted
13/19 recommendations fully
implemented