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Budgetary support reduces rail accidents by 50%

In the general budget of 2017-18, the Centre made a special provision of one lakh crore rupees for setting up the National Rail Safety Fund (RRSK).

Budgetary support reduces rail accidents by 50%

Representation image (File Photo)

The provision of budgetary support for railway safety works by the Central government has yielded positive results. Due to the provision, there has been a decrease in rail accidents by up to 50 per cent in the last five years.

The Railways is confident that rail accidents will be brought to a minimum in the next five years.

In the general budget of 2017-18, the Centre made a special provision of one lakh crore rupees under this head, setting up the National Rail Safety Fund (RRSK) for the Railways. In this way, the Railway Board had to spend Rs 20,000 thousand crores every year on railway safety works. In 2020, due to the Corona epidemic and other reasons, the Railways could not spend the fixed amount to be spent every year. But the Railway Board has achieved success in reducing accidents.

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A senior railway official said that 90 percent of train accidents happen due to derailment, collision, and railway crossings. Therefore, with the help of RRSK, railway protection works were done on a priority basis in the said area. He told that there were 54 incidents of derailment of trains in 2017-18, it reduced to 27 in 2021-22. in this thread

There were three incidents of a train collision in 2017-18, their number has come down to two in 2021-22. There were 10 train accidents at unmanned railway crossings in 2017-18 and there was not a single accident at unmanned railway crossings during 2019-20 to 2021-22. The official said that there have been a total of 73 train accidents in 2017-18. There have been 59 rail accidents in 2018-19, 55 in 2019-20, 22 in 2020-21, and 35 in 2021-22.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) said in its report in March 2023 that the government announced a grant of one lakh crore rupees to the National Rail Safety Fund (RRSK). In this every year Rs 15,000 crore was to be raised by the Government of India and the remaining Rs 5,000 crore by the Railways.

In this, Railways failed to deposit Rs 15775 crore (5000 crores per year) from its fund during 2017-18 to 2020-21. Recently, railway officials said that NITI Aayog has praised Indian Railways for railway safety works under RRSK. Based on this, the Finance Ministry has allocated Rs 11,000 crore for RRSK for 2022-23 and 2023-24. Apart from this, RRSK will give a total of Rs 45,000 crore from 2021-22 to 2025-26 (five years) under the head. Due to this, the railway safety works can be completed.

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