The Hindu Business Line : Rajdhani derailment — Bridge certified `fit': Nitish

EVEN as the Commissioner of Railway Safety has commenced an inquiry into the derailment of the Delhi-bound Howrah Rajdhani Express on a bridge near Rafigang on Monday night, the Railway Minister, Mr Nitish Kumar, on Wednesday reiterated that the bridge had been certified as ``fit'' by the railway engineers.

``The Divisional Engineer, who inspected the bridge in April, certified that it was in sound condition'', said Mr Nitish Kumar, adding that a similar certification had been given for tracks, which were inspected on August 25.

At the same time, he declined to comment on the cause of the mishap, which had claimed 90 lives, saying that it would not be correct to speculate anything till the inquiry report was available.

Mr Nitish Kumar, who appraised the Home Minister, Mr L.K. Advani, on the progress made in the rescue operations, had on Tuesday maintained that ``prima facie the cause of the accident appeared to be a sabotage''.

Mr Kumar was of the view that there was no direct correlation between the age and condition of railway bridges. Nearly 74 per cent of the over 1,19,984 bridges are over 60 years old. However, of these only 527 bridges have been categorised as distressed bridges — i.e. those showing physical signs of deterioration.

Significantly, the budgeted expenditure for rehabilitation of distressed bridges in the current fiscal works out to just around six per cent of the allocation from the Special Railway Safety Fund. A large chunk of the proceeds of the SRSF is being used for track renewals.

``The Railways are working on a plan to repair, rehabilitate and replace identified distressed bridges as recommended by the Khanna Safety report'', Mr Nitish Kumar said.

Based on the recommendations of the Khanna Committee, Rs 17,000 crore has been earmarked for safety-related works over a period of seven years beginning October 2001. Of this Rs 5,000 crore would come from passenger surcharge and the balance Rs 12,000 crore as additional support from the Government.

Last year, the total expenditure on safety-related works (met from the accruals to the Special Railway Safety Fund) stood at Rs 1,434 crore, marginally higher than the allocated Rs 1,400 crore.

The Railways have plans to rehabilitate 341 out of 527 identified distressed bridges. As on July 31, re-habilitation work has been completed in 61 bridges. The total allocation for the current fiscal is Rs 209 crore — Rs 143 crore from the SRSF and Rs 66 crore from the Depreciation Reserve Fund (DRF).

The budgeted allocation (from the SRSF) for the current fiscal is Rs 2,210 crore. Roughly 75 per cent of the allocation (Rs 1,661 crore) has been earmarked for track renewals.

Combined with an allocation Rs 1,856 crore from the DRF, the total allocation for track renewals in the current fiscal is Rs 3,617 crore.

These monies would be spent on track renewals of 4,000-route km.

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