New Delhi: Opposition members in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday said privatisation of various operations of the Railways by the government has compromised safety, leading to accidents and death of many passengers.
During a discussion on the working of Ministry of Railways, N R Elango (DMK) alleged that 2 million jobs in the Railways have been cut through contractualisation and outsourcing of the workforce.
After the BJP government came to power, in 2015 a Niti Aayog committee proposed a two-decade vision to privatise major segments of India’s extensive railway network. Since then the BJP government has implemented various privatisation measures through multiple approaches, he said.
Elango further said,”In the past three or four years we have lost valuable lives of 400 passengers due to train accidents, compared to zero deaths between 2018 and 2021. Why is this happening? This is happening because of privatisation of employees.”
He alleged that the government is “giving the line maintenance, the infrastructure maintenance, everything to contractors”.
The contractors again sub-contract to third sub-contractors and the employees of that sub-contractor do not own the system, Elango said, adding, “As long as they don’t own the system these kind of accidents will definitely happen. Instead of that if you employ persons in the railways itself, they will own the system, the accidents will reduce to a much lower level.”
Participating in the debate, Sanjay Yadav (RJD) cited the high number of deaths in various accidents related to the Railways in the recent past and said the safety system ‘Kavach’ has not been fully implemented and wondered how many lives have been lost while waiting for the system.
Pointing out several issues, such as the government’s ‘indifferent’ attitude in dealing with derailments, cleanliness of toilets in trains and stations, inability to handle crowds, he said rail journeys in India have become synonymous ‘suffer’ not a ‘safar’.
“Railway is the lifeline of India but this government has put it in a lifeless condition,” Yadav said, adding the government must keep in mind the plight of the poor while modernising the Railways.
On the other hand, former prime minister HD Devegowda JD(S) said the Railways has done “a great job in the last ten years” which can be compared with the work done in the previous 60 years due to the clear vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ambition to make India a developed nation.
Ayodhya Rami Reddy Alla (YSRCP), while appreciating various steps taken up by the government to modernise Railways, said the current speed and the vision is not sufficient and has to be accelerated.
Subhasish Khuntia (BJD) accused the Centre of neglecting Odisha stating the state is getting very less considering its overall contribution to the Railways’ overall revenue.
