Railways increased safety spending 2.5-fold in past decade

livemint.com:

₹1,78,012 crore on rail safety, including the budget estimate for FY24, at an average annual spend of ₹17,801 crore. This is 2.5 times the safety spend of the railways prior to 2014.

Since poor-quality of tracks is one of the main causes of train accidents, the railways has given special focus to this work. It spent ₹10,201 crore annually on track renewals between FY15 and FY23, against ₹4,702 crore between FY05 and FY14.

Spending on high-quality rails also more than doubled during the period to ₹13,746 crore a year. Spending on the electronic interlocking system also trebled during the current government’s term.

“Owing to these steps, there has been a significant improvement in the safety performance of Indian Railways over the years. The trend of consequential train accidents from 2000-01 to 2022-23 indicates that the number of such cases has fallen drastically from 2014-15 onwards," said a person aware of the development.

As per data provided by the railway ministry during the ongoing monsoon session of parliament, the number of consequential train accidents fell from 473 in 2000-01 to 135 in 2014-15 and 48 in 2022-23. There were an average of 171 consequential train accidents a year during 2004-14, and 71 a year during 2014-23, it showed.