Safety last in Lalu school of management

NEW DELHI: Lalu Prasad Yadav may be patting himself on the back for effecting a turnaround of the Indian Railways, but a CAG report threatens to sully his track-record by rapping the ministry on its knuckles for enhancing the limit on freight-loading without precaution, which has put rolling stock, bridges and tracks under threat.

A steep increase in freight-earnings has been one the primary sources of revenue earned by the railways in recent years. And this could be attained by allowing the wagons to carry more freight.

The carrying capacity (CC) of a wagon is based upon the load that its axles can carry. Prior to November, 2004, the wagons were allowed to load 2 tonnes, additionally, where the permissible axle load was taken as 20.32 tonnes. From November 2004 onwards, they were allowed to load an additional 6 tonnes beyond their carrying capacity.

In May, 2005, with the objective of increasing the earnings without increasing freight rates, the railways introduced a pilot project system by which wagons were permitted to be loaded beyond the marked carrying capacity by 10 tonnes in the case of iron ore and 8 tonnes in the case of coal.

This system was formally green-lighted subsequently, much to the delight of Rail Bhawan which saw its earnings jump rapidly. But it now transpires that the railways ministry gave the go-ahead to increase the freight-capacity of wagons without putting in place mandatory safety mechanisms.

``Before getting on with the increased loading, the zonal railways was asked to ensure the installation of compatible tracks, weighing bridges to facilitate loading only up to permitted levels and equipment such as wheel impact load-detectors and bridge instrumentation to monitor the impact of enhanced loading,’’ the CAG report, which was laid in Parliament here on Monday, observed.

“In almost all the railway zones, the pilot projects of permitting the wagons to load beyond their carrying capacity were commenced even without fulfiling conditions of installation of in-motion weigh bridges and wheel impact load detectors,’’ it noted.

The CAG found that railways were violating even the new freight-loading ceilings with impunity. ``Even after permitting wagons to be loaded with excess weight up to 10 tonnes on iron ore routes and 8 tonnes on coal routes, at least four zones — south-eastern, south-western, east-coast and eastern — were found to be overloaded beyond these enhanced limits,’’ the report pointed out.

The reports cautioned the ministry that though the Railway Board was allowed to book additional freight, ``there would be an adverse impact on track, bridges and rolling stock unless the railways takes urgent action to upgrade the tracks and monitor the parameters closely.’’