Kanchanjunga Exp collision: Driver 'overworked', ire at Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw

New Delhi, NT Bureau: The train collision in Bengal’s New Jalpaiguri leading to the death of at least nine people(unofficial sources put it at 15) and injuries to several others has led to widespread condemnation of Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw’s alleged inability to tackle the problems plaguing India’s train services, reports The Wire.

Many on social media criticised Vaishnaw’s “PR campaigns” calling him a “reel minister” – a play on the word “rail”, referring to short videos uploaded to Instagram, and implying that Vaishnaw’s efforts are expended in popularising his ministry’s work, not in taking care of real problems.

As anger mounted in the second big train accident in the last year – months after the Coromandel Express pile-up in Odisha’s Balasore, that caused the deaths of 275 people – reports pointed to the fact that a key safety measure was missing from the tracks on which the trains plied.

This is the fourth major train accident in the last year. The Kanchanjunga Express, which was bound for Sealdah when it was hit by a goods train, is on a route that the “Kavach” system to prevent collisions is not yet available on.

The automatic train protection (ATP) system, is only implemented on around 1,500 km stretch of railway tracks, Hindustan Times has reported. The country has over a lakh kilometres of railway tracks.

Meanwhile, a report on India Today said, quoting sources, that the goods train that rammed into the Kanchanjunga Express was allowed to cross all red signals as the automatic signalling system was not working: That the automatic signalling system between Ranipatra and Chattar Hat was not working since 5.50 am, was reported by PTI as well, quoting sources.

Indian Express has quoted Railway Board chairperson Jaya Varma Sinha has having blamed human error.“Prima facie, it appears to be human error but we will know more after the inquiry… Unfortunately, the driver (of the goods train) also perished in the accident… So we have no authentic way of knowing what exactly happened. Whatever we can gather from the situation, it seems there was a disregard for the signal.”

Business Standard quoted Shiva Gopal Mishra, the general secretary of the All India Railwaymen’s Federation as having said that he has been informed that the loco pilot had been on continuous night duty for the past four days and was supposed to be on rest.

Cong accuses govt of 'destroying' railways, demands Vaishnaw's resignation

Accusing the government of "destroying" Indian Railways, the Congress demanded Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw's resignation.

The opposition party also took a swipe at Vaishnaw for reaching the accident site riding pillion on a motorcycle, asking whether he is a rail minister or a "reel minister". . "Why are 3 lakh posts vacant in the Railways? According to the NCRB report, 1,00,000 people have died in rail accidents between 2017 and 2021! " Congress chief Kharge said.