Cover Your Tracks: The Modi Government’s Attitude After the Balasore Tragedy https://thewire.in/government/cover-your-tracks-the-modi-governments-attitude-after-the-balasore-tragedy In a cynical attempt to avoid culpability for one of India’s worst-ever rail disasters at Balasore, the Modi government is peddling conspiracy theories.
This deviation appears to indicate a desperate attempt at damage limitation that has two facets: one, to limit the damage to the political authority embodied in Narendra Modi the prime minister because, after all, after the spate of Vande Bharat inaugurations he is now seen as the face of the Railways in popular perception; and, two, to ring fence the impact of this particular accident so that longstanding issues of a systemic nature in the Railways, which have a bearing on safety
“The bosses are extremely averse to delay traffic, even if it actually compromises safety,” he said. “The subordination of those who work to ensure safe operations, to those whose task is to maximise revenues, is a serious anomaly, and this has only worsened in recent years.”
In heavily congested railway corridors like the one on which the Coromandel Express was travelling – characterised by not just high passenger traffic but also of goods, particularly coal and iron ore – those on the engineering side have to bargain hard to get adequate time to conduct the regular repair or maintenance work. In railway parlance, the “block” time they get is often a fraction of what is required....“The bosses are extremely averse to delay traffic, even if it actually compromises safety,” he said. “The subordination of those who work to ensure safe operations, to those whose task is to maximise revenues, is a serious anomaly, and this has only worsened in recent years.”