New Delhi, Jul 9 (PTI) The Railway Ministry has directed all railway zones to put in place a process of prior permission from the concerned departments before starting the operations of engineering trolleys on railway track for its maintenance.
The ministry’s decision came almost a fortnight after an unfortunate incident in Bihar’s Katihar district where the Awadh Assam Express collided with a maintenance trolley killing a railway worker and injuring three others.
The push trolley was operated on the track earlier on June 20 without informing the control and traffic department which allowed the train to pass on the same track resulting in the collision, according to the railway track maintainer’s union.
“A case of unusual incidence of dashing of Mopped Trolley with a passenger train has been reported. To ensure safety and prevent such incidence, it has been decided by the Competent Authority that working of Motor/Mopped trolley without block protection shall be banned with immediate effect, irrespective of sectional speed,” said the Railway Ministry in a letter dated July 7 addressed to the general managers of all zones.
The ministry also directed that correction should be added in the Indian Railway Permanent Way Manual (IRPWM), which regulates the trolley and track maintenance work.
“It is requested that all concerned may be directed for its compliance,” the letter said.
The engineering department, which maintains the track, will under the block protection system have to inform the traffic and control department and take their permission for running a motor trolley on the track for maintenance for a specific time period.
The control department will have to ensure that there would be no train movement during that specific time period.
There were provisions in the IRPWM to initiate track maintenance work after taking block protection from the concerned department, said the Railway officials, adding, however, at the same time, initiation of trolley movement without block permission was also allowed.
“The Senior Section Engineers (SSEs) were at liberty to send motor trolleys with track maintainers keeping in mind the time gap between two train movements. However, small miscalculations result in accidents. Many cases happened in the past due to this,” the officials said.
The Railway Ministry’s decision is a welcoming one in safeguarding the lives of track maintainers and ensuring safety of rail operations, said All Indian Railway Track Maintainers Union (AIRTU) national general secretary Kantharaju AV.
The Union office bearers said that SSEs force track maintainers will operate mopped trolleys even in risky situations and when they refuse to do that, they are harassed and marked absent even when they are on duty.
“The ministry’s decision for block protection will stop our harassment now,” a track maintainer said.
Railway Signal and Telecommunication Maintainers Union general secretary Alok Chandra Prakash also welcomed the decision.
“We have been raising this issue since very long as the engineering department used to operate these trolleys without informing anyone posing grave threat to operational safety. Now they will have to ask for a block,” he said.
Satish Yadav, the general secretary of AIRTU, Western Railway, said the ministry “has addressed a long pending issue which will ensure safety of track maintainers”.
“We are the most vulnerable railway workers working under very stressful and harsh conditions,” he added. PTI JP AS AS
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.