With the death toll now at 300 and over 1,000 injured, the tragic accident in Balasore, eastern Odisha has once again focused attention on the issue of railway safety in India.
The crash was one of the country’s deadliest train accidents in decades, and occurred at a time when the government has been trying to make rail travel a pleasurable, and, more importantly, a safe experience.
Such crashes are far from unprecedented in India. In 1999, a collision between two trains in West Bengal killed 285 people, and in 2010, 145 died in the same state when a passenger train derailed and was hit by a cargo train. More recently, in 2016, 160 people died when a passenger train traveling between the cities of Indore and Patna slipped off its tracks.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has for the last few years been trying to stimulate its rail modernisation push by introducing high-speed, automated trains in one of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world. This includes a plan to have 100 per cent electrification of the railways by 2024 and make the network carbon neutral by 2030.
