Railway staff to blame, says report on Utkal derailment -Governance Now

Railway staff to blame, says report on Utkal derailment

The preliminary report says general reluctance in granting blocks to carry out maintenance work and unavailability of short margins was root cause of derailment

Vishwas Dass | September 6, 2017 | New Delhi

#report #Commissioner Railway Safety #maintenance #Utkal #derailment #Railway

Photo for representational purpose

The railway staff carried out track repair work without getting prerequisite permissions, said a preliminary report on the derailment of Puri-Haridwar Utkal Express that left 23 passengers dead.

The report has been accessed by Governance Now.

The report prepared by commissioner railway safety said the ground staff of the railways failed to provide the traffic block in time for repair of unsafe track that led to derailment of Utkal express.

Fourteen coaches of Utkal express were derailed between Khatauli and Mansurpur railway stations in Uttar Pradesh on August 19. Over 70 people were injured.

The report by CRS, northern circle, SK Pathak observed that most of the sections of the northern railway do not have provision of maintenance corridors (for more than 2.5 hours) for maintenance/repair of assets. It also says general reluctance in granting the block to carry out maintenance work and unavailability of short margins is the root cause of problem.

It stated that the departments concerned are giving a margin of only 1-2 hours for maintenance and repair work on the northern railway sections which flouts the rules of Railway Board of giving one block of at least four hours or two blocks of 2.5 hours to ensure adequate time for the maintenance.

CRS report lays emphasis on allowing assistant station masters (ASMs) to permit short blocks of around half an hour as they are at the ground level and understand the gravity of situation.

Senior officials earlier had questioned the lack of coordination between engineering, signaling and traffic wing staff.

Officials said that trackmen had started carrying out track maintenance work between Khatauli and Mansurpur railway stations of Delhi-Saharanpur section without even putting up a red flag at least one kilometer away from the site. Later, a few media reports say trackmen had sought block from the traffic wing official which denied the permission to do so because of punctuality reasons.

Comments

Other News

Uday Kotak on history, Indian economy, growth and more

Pathbreakers: How 10 Visionary Leaders Transformed India by award-winning journalists By Sucheta Dalal and Debashis Basu Rupa Publications, 304 pages, Rs 695

₹5,000 crore saved from suspected financial fraud

In a significant gain for citizen protection in the digital economy, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has helped prevent suspected cyber fraud losses of more than ₹5,000 crore through its Financial Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI) within fifteen months of its launch on May 22, 2025. This money did

Capital acquisition proposals worth Rs 1.10 lakh crore for defence forces cleared

The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), under the chairmanship of Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh, on Monday accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN), that is, in-principle administrative approval to various acquisition proposals of the defence forces at an estimated cost of about Rs 1,10,000 crore.

How Rafi, Raj Kapoor helped pave the way for a great uranium deal

There`s a certain moment in diplomacy that`s too personal to be captured in a communiqué, too small to make the front page, but more revealing than the front page. This week, prime minister Narendra Modi reached Tashkent and, amid the pomp of state visits, managed to evoke the old Bollywood tunes

Distinguishing Fish 1 and Fish 2: The pragmatism behind India’s WTO ratification

India became the 123rd WTO member to ratify the multilateral Agreement on Fisheries subsidies (AoFS) when it deposited the Instrument of Acceptance for Phase 1 on July 20, 2026. The ratification is restricted to disciplining Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing (IUU), protection for overfished

The 7% growth problem: Why the next 7% will be harder

India has become accustomed to hearing the 7% growth number. It is now less a milestone than an expectation. Yet the paradox is becoming clearer: maintaining 7% growth may be considerably harder than achieving it once. India’s real GDP grew 7.7% in FY2025–26, following growth of 6.5% in FY202