Quora user questions railways on safety: Guess who answered

A Quora user was in for a surprise after railways minister Piyush Goyal answered his question on the steps taken by the Indian Railways, which is grappling with a spate of accidents, to improve the safety of passengers.

The world’s fourth largest rail network that carries 23 million passengers every day was hit by 78 derailments in 2016-17 with 193 people dead, the most in 10 years.

Goyal’s comprehensive reply on Monday was full of charts and photographs and dealt with various aspects of how his ministry has “made safety the number one priority”.

He said that the railway ministry has undertaken a comprehensive review of safety to understand the shortcomings of the Indian Railways and brought forth a number of immediate measures to address key issues such as unmanned level crossing and derailments.

“Priority for the ministry is the procurement of new rails on a large scale with a target to complete all new lines on time. This is vital to improving safety as older tracks must be phased out to prevent derailments and improve efficiency,” Goyal, who replaced Suresh Prabhu as the railways minister over the recent spate of rail accidents, wrote.

The minister said certain issues related to unmanned level crossings were addressed for a safer commute. He added that production of old ICF coaches will be stopped to pave way for modern Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches, which are considered safer.

“Railways have striven to establish a ‘zero accident’ railway system, and it has significantly brought down the number of fatalities under this Government. However, every life is precious and each life lost is one too many,” he said.

The former Union minister for power, who has a little over 1,000 followers on Quora, has previously posted three answers, including two concerning his earlier portfolio, on the platform.

Goyal is one of the proactive ministers on social media. According to a report, Goyal ranked second after the Prime Minister Narendra Modi based on his social media activity, sharing the spot with external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj.

Read his full answer here