During 2004-14, 904 people were killed in train accidents, compared with 748 in 2014-24. (PTI file)
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a statement in the Rajya Sabha that the number of train accidents during 2004-14 was 1,711 (an average of 171 per year), which has come down to 678 during 2014-24 (an average of 68 per year)
Official data analyzed by News18 shows that Indian Railways reported 118 indirect or serious train accidents in 2013-14, a number that dropped nearly three times to just 40 in 2023-24. The analysis shows the number of indirect accidents has dropped to nearly one, compared with about two serious accidents per week.
Train accidents can be broadly divided into two categories: consequential accidents and non-consequential accidents. Consequences are those that have a serious impact in terms of loss of life, damage to railway property or disruption of railway traffic up to prescribed threshold levels and values. These include collisions, fires, derailments and level crossing incidents.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a statement in the Rajya Sabha that the number of accidents has dropped drastically due to various safety measures taken over the years.
“Indirect train accidents, including consequent train derailments, have decreased from 473 in January 2000 to 40 in January 2023…Causes of these accidents broadly include track defects, locomotive/car defects, equipment failures, Human error,” he said.
He also said that the number of train accidents during 2004-14 was 1,711, an average of 171 per year, while it had dropped to 678 during 2014-24, an average of 68 per year.
Although the ministry has managed to control the number of resulting train accidents, the total number of fatalities in these accidents has not dropped as much. During 2004-14, these accidents killed 904 people, compared with 748 in 2014-24.
“The total cost of damage to railway property such as rolling stock/tracks due to train accidents in the last five years is estimated to be around Rs 313 crore,” he added.
Maharashtra MP Imran Pratapgarhi and Kerala MP Jebi Mather Hisham asked the minister a series of questions about the trains Issues such as accidents and related fatalities, damage to railroad property, and compensation for injured persons and relatives of deceased persons.
“In the past five years (from 2019-20 to 2023-24), the total amount of compensation (as defined in section 124 of the Railways Act 1989) paid by the Railways to train accident victims/next of kin of the deceased was approximately 268.3 thousand Ten thousand rupees, the injury cost is about 70 million rupees.
The amount of compensation was determined on the basis of claim applications and awards before the Railway Claims Tribunal (RCT), he said, adding that currently, 52 cases under Section 124 of the Railways Act, 1989 are pending before different courts.
