GM’s annual inspection should be restored to save human lives and ensure safety

#RailwayBoard dispensed the GM’s annual inspection which is a drastic erroneous administrative (managerial) decision. For this reason a reluctant attitude is in the mind-set of lower level officials and it is suspected that proper inspection may not be done in time to time

Dear Sir,

We all are aware about the recent #Balasore rail accident on 02.06.2023 at Bahanaga Bazar station of Odisa under the jurisdiction of Kharagpur division of South Eastern Railway which was causing about 300 lives to end.

In my small knowledge about railway working it was noticed earlier that in each and every railway accident there were always two reasons (i) Technical & (ii) Managerial.

In the ‘Bahanaga Bazar rail accident’, the Commissioner of Railway Safety (#CRS) is busy in his job to find out the causes and their remedies. And the CBI is also intensively investigating the criminal angels. Both the above agencies will conclude about the technical reasons in the form of mistakes or intention done by a person/group of persons.

Here we all forget another portion of this coin (accident) i.e. Managerial which is also equally investigated during the accident enquiries. In the railway there is a schedule of inspections for each and every asset to check the proper functioning. Almost every inspection officials were carried out at their level from time to time and issued inspection notes for compliance.

On that line there was a highest zonal level annual inspection carried out by GM with all PHODs in a particular section of each division and workshops of his/her jurisdiction. Before that annual GM inspection every department was complied with as per provisioning of their manuals in force. (If anything restricted the present practices in railway working then the concern manuals were edited later on from time to time.)

But #RailwayBoard vide letter no. 2022/CC/Inspection/Genl. Dated: 31.12.2022 dispensed the GM’s annual inspection which is a drastic erroneous #administrative (#managerial) decision. For this reason a reluctant attitude is in the mind-set of lower level officials and it is suspected that proper #inspection may not be done in time to time.

I am worried that, “that type of railway accident may occur repeatedly in the future if this type of high level annual inspection will dispense forever”. Hence it should be restored immediately to save human lives by the national transporter.

With Thanks & Regards,
Balendu Samaddar
A alert citizen & reader