Train travel in the country has gotten much safer, Friday’s disaster notwithstanding, but the government still puts high-profile projects ahead of basic safety improvements, analysts say Railway workers in India on Sunday at the site of a three-train crash.Credit...Atul Loke for The New York Times
In a country where major industry and political fortunes alike are often tied to a vast, interwoven rail system, India has lavished public resources on new trains, but its purse strings have been much tighter when it comes to ensuring the safety of those already racing along its tracks.
Those decisions loomed large on Sunday in the aftermath of a devastating train wreck that killed at least 275 people in eastern India. Investigators said they were focused on the possibility that signal failure might have led to the three-train crash on Friday, the worst rail wreck in the country in years.
The crash, which also injured more than 1,100 people, occurred when a passenger train heading south about 80 miles per hour toward the city of Chennai veered onto the wrong track and hit a parked freight train, the authorities say. The first train’s derailed cars then plowed into a second passenger train that was heading toward it, leaving a scene of carnage.
Over the past years, India has been polishing its long-ramshackle infrastructure as never before, and its railways, which are at the heart of the world’s fifth-largest economy, have been a prime beneficiary. The government spent almost $30 billion on the rail system during the past fiscal year, up 15 percent from the year before.
But the amount spent on basic track maintenance and other safety measures has been falling. A report last year by India’s auditor general, an independent office, found that less money was being allocated for track renewal work and that officials had not even spent the full amount set aside.
With more than 20 million passengers riding the rails of India every day, many of them migrant workers, a politician cannot go wrong by showering money on the system, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has done just that, with no little fanfare. The budget for the train system, one of the largest in the world, is five times as much this year than when he took office.
But most of Mr. Modi’s initiatives have been aimed not at thebasic steps needed to get trains from Point A to Point B without mishap, but at improving speed and comfort. He has extolled the new electric Vande Bharat trains connecting various cities and a Japanese-style bullet train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, though they are likely to do nothing to improve the daily lives of ordinary commuters.The government says the investment is part of an effort to elevate the experience of riding India’s railways to a world-class standard and to attract investment from abroad