Page 46 - Insurance Times July 2023

Failure to meet safety expenditure target overall delivery mechanism and ensure that the objectives
of creation of the fund is not diluted,” it said.
The Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh (RRSK) is a dedicated fund
created for the railways in 2017-18 with a corpus of Rs 1
lakh crore for five years. In 2022, upon the recommendation Shortfall in track inspections
of NITI Aayog, the central government agreed to extend The Indian Railways is mandated to carry out regular track
the currency of the fund for another five years. inspections to assess the structural and geometrical health
of tracks. For this, they use Track Recording Cars (TRC), which
The objective of the fund is to clear the backlog of critical are automated track inspection vehicles. Each railway route
safety and related works of the ministry, including track has been categorised into a group based on their sanctioned
renewals, strengthening of bridges, and signalling speed and geography as shown in the below table. The
improvements among others. frequency of TRC inspections on each track is based on
which group it belongs to.
The RRSK fund is financed through the railways’ share of
Central Road & Infrastructure Fund (Rs 10,000 crore), According to the CAG, between 2017 and 2021, nearly half
additional budgetary support (Rs 5,000 crore), and the of the overall required number of track inspections were not
railways’ contribution from internal resources (Rs 5,000 done. In fact, the shortfall in TRC track inspections ranged
crore). from 30 percent to as much as 100 percent among routes
in different groups.
A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India
(CAG) tabled in December 2022 noted that while the Rs "Non-deployment of TRCs over planned sections, as per
15,000-crore gross budgetary support for the scheme is schedule, led to non-checking of track parameters having
being met, the contribution from the internal resources of implications on overall safety of train operations including
railways have fallen short over the years. derailments,” said the CAG report.

According to the CAG, this has resulted in the scheme failing Referring to the inquiry report on the derailment of
to meet its objectives. “Short deployment of funds by the Seemachal Express in 2019 in Bihar, which led to the death
railways from internal resources to the tune of 15,775 crore of six people, the CAG points out that a track inspection was
(78.88 percent) out of the total share of 20,000 crore had due in that zone for four months at the time which could
defeated the primary objective of creation of RRSK to have given vital inputs for defects in the track.
support absolute safety in the railways,” said the report.
The Kharagpur railway division, which saw the recent train
Similar concerns were also raised in the seventh report of crash, falls under the South East Railway zone. According to
the Parliamentary Committee on Railways. “Such a shortfall the CAG, the shortfall in track inspections in that zone
reflects poorly on the ability of the Indian Railways to between 2017 and 2021 was as high as 83 percent in routes
generate surpluses. The committee also feel that the falling under the ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘D Special’ groups, and 50 percent
railways need to address this inherent deficiency in the in the routes under ‘B’ group. (Source: money control)

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