Patna, December 2
The freak accident at Bhagalpur when a half-dismantled overbridge fell on a coach of Howrah-Jamalpur superfast express, perhaps, again brought to the fore the alleged lackadaisical attitude by respective Railway Ministers to attach adequate importance to the findings by Justice H.R.Khanna.
This was irrespective of the promises in respective rail Budgets since 2000 to spend crores of rupees on passenger safety. Sources in the East-Central Railway pointed out that in 1999, the then Railway Safety Review Committee headed by Justice H R Khanna had produced a detailed report on rail safety measures.
That report had identified nearly 300 bridges across the country as "weak and distressed" and in urgent need of replacement.
Since 1986, there have been between 200 to 250 accidents, major and minor, across the railways network every
year. India also 20,000-plus steel bridges, many weak and accident-prone.
Of the estimated 120,000 bridges spanning the railways network, over half were built during the British Raj. And some of them, like the overbridge which collapsed today at
Bhagalpur, was 150 years old.
