New Delhi, July 24 (UNI) Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Wednesday said the number of train accidents in the country has dropped “significantly” to 678 during the last 10 years – 2014-24 – under the NDA regime.
The average figure comes to 68 per annum, which was far below the average of 171 per annum recorded between 2004 and 2014, when the Congress-led UPA governed the country, the minister told the Lok Sabha.
In a written reply in the Lower House, Vaishnaw said, “Train accidents during the period 2004-14 was 1711 (average 171 per annum)”.
Vaishnaw said, “Due to various safety measures taken over the years, there has been a steep decline in the number of accidents resulting in fewer deaths and injured persons in these accidents”.
Giving details on the expenditure on safety work that has been undertaken by the ministry, Vashinaw said, ” It was 70 thousand 273 crore rupees in ten years of UPA regime while the expenditure on safety increased 2.52 times and reached 177 thousand 332 crore rupees in last ten years”.
Responding to a question about the Vadsa- Garh-chirauli rail project in Maharashtra, The Union minister said land has been acquired for the project and work is in progress.
“The railways have a big focus on Maharashtra and the state received funds of 13 thousand 539 crore rupees in last fiscal year, while the allocation during the second UPA regime was 1171 crore rupees per year” he added.
The minister said during the UPA regime only 58 kilometre of railway line was being constructed per year while the number was 183 kilometers per year in the last ten years of the NDA government.
Giving details on the development projects underway in Andhra Pradesh, Vaishnaw said the Narendra Modi government has consistently focused on railway projects in the state.
He was responding to a question in Parliament from Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MP Kesineni Shivnath about the ongoing railway projects in Andhra.
“Andhra Pradesh is a very important state. If we look at the Budget allocation that has been done for the development of railways in the last 10 years, this is a historical Budget allocation for the development of Andhra Pradesh. Between 2009 and 2014, the average allocation for combined Andhra and Telangana used to be Rs 886 crore per year,” he said.
On the indigenously developed Automatic Train Protection system KAVACH, the Minister said it has been so far deployed on 1465 km and 144 locomotives on South Central Railway.
Vaishnaw said work related to KAVACH was now underway over approximately 3000 route kilometres on Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah corridors.
“Indian Railways has also prepared a detailed project report and estimate on another 6000 route Kilometers to install KAVACH,” he said.
Vaishnaw thanked PM Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for allocating a huge amount for the development of Railways.
Addressing a press conference later in the day, the Minister informed that Rs 3,694 crore has been allocated to Jammu and Kashmir in the budget for the year 2024-25 to accelerate the development of rail infrastructure.
“The work is also going on for the new projects and these projects are about to be completed soon.” he said.
Over the fund allocation to other states, he informed Rs 5131 crore have been earmarked for the railway projects in Uttarakhand.
“The project of Karnaprayag is important for us. It has a 213 km long tunnel. The two Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM) used here are named ‘Shiv’ and ‘Shakti” he said.
