2 killed every 3 days in train accidents

Safety issues in the Indian railways continue to be a major concern.

A study of railway accidents during 2009 - 2014 indicated that a large chunk of accidents were due to derailments and accidents at level crossings.

Despite number of accidents dropping every year, nonetheless there were 52 derailments last year.

However, number of passenger casualties has significantly dropped since 2012-13.

In the wake of several railway accidents that left over 225 dead, the Prime Minister's Office has written to Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, indicating displeasure with the department's performance.

It mentions the severe gap between proposed targets of 2016 and actual work done.

After providing an impressive budget of Rs. 1,31,000cr, the letter asked railways to "justify higher allocation in the next budget".

The Railway Ministry said that this year there have been 40 incidents of sabotage between Jan-Feb along the railways tracks, as opposed to 45 such cases in all of 2016.

Official said the "rise in numbers is also because now the level of attention to such incidents is at its highest."

Sources said Mumbai witnessed a majority of such cases.

Data revealed that of the 1018 train accidents in the last 8 years, only 4.7% of them were caused by sabotage. In addition, the 1018 accidents took 1940 lives and injured over 3200.

44% of these accidents were caused by failure or mistakes made by railway staff.

There is also an overwhelming shortage of railway safety staff, leading to overworking.