Railways need to do more for disaster management

The precaution taken by the Railways in replacing the traditional bogies of the Rajdhanis and some other fast-moving trains with German technology-based LHB coaches is yet to be extended to other trains.

The German technology allows the new coaches to be decoupled from outside, while the use of fire retardant material in their manufacture ensures that a fire that breaks out anywhere in the train does not spread fast. These precautions saved the life of more than 1,000 people who were travelling by the Mumbai-Rajdhani Express on April 19 this year.

It is a nightmare to imagine what would have happened if the Railways had not taken the above-mentioned precautions. But that is the kind of threat that passengers of most other trains travel with because little has been done by the Railways (or by most other government departments) for disaster management. In most cases, safety remains an individual initiative and rescue remains a heroic act.

Further, there is hardly any information in the public domain about disaster preparedness for trains in India. While the safety measures taken by the Railways on the recommendations of the high-level committee on disaster management set up by the then railway minister, Nitish Kumar, are accessible on paper, the information is yet to reach passengers.

Information on what to do in the event of a disaster is neither posted in trains, nor at our railway stations. A checklist of safety procedures, maps of escape routes or emergency contact numbers for the railways are not in the public domain. As a result, the large numbers of passengers as well as the crowds that throng the railway stations remain highly vulnerable.

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) of the Union government has made a series of hazard-specific guidelines for around 21 types of hazards-from droughts to urban floods. Yet, so far, no sector has been taken up for a detailed, third- party, performance scrutiny. The reason perhaps is that our ministries and departments have not given due importance to the work of the NDMA.

A disaster management plan for the Indian Railways was worked out in detail in 2009 and it has been reviewed, at least once. But the review remains an internal process without the involvement of civil society as a third party. The technical and hardware issues do get addressed by the internal review but the citizens' perspectives remain neglected.

The next time you take a train, step into the station master's room, say namste and find out if he or she has a copy of the station's contingency plan for disaster. Ask if the plan was updated in the last six months. Ask if it was used in any crisis, what parts of the plan worked, and what did not work. After you have received this information, you can decide if your platform ticket includes a concern for your safety.

Once in the train, ask your fellow passengers if they have seen a train safety chart that you yourself may have overlooked. Or, perhaps your ticket collector has one such chart in his possession that he can share with you?

My fear is you are likely to be disappointed by the answers of both your fellow passengers and the ticket collector. The reason for this lack of information is not shortage of money. The Indian Railways has enough of it. Rather, it is because no one has found the time to break down the said 2009 disaster management plan into train-level guidelines and passenger awareness posters so far.

The first respondents in any railway disaster are the on-duty staff and the passengers. Today railway staff have received enough systematic training in how to handle emergencies and carry out rescue efforts but the passengers remain profoundly ignorant about safety and response procedures.

Institutions fail us in India; it is left to individuals to save us. When we build institutions at high cost, we can expect them to survey, research and plan. But it is also incumbent upon them to make sure that their plans are accessible, comprehensible and implementable by every citizen in our country.

Decidedly, we need dedicated efforts to make our trains safer. This job must be done by our railways and, and as passengers, we must expect and demand safety information in local languages on trains and at railway stations.

— The author is currently working on disaster preparedness after Cyclone Aila in the Sunderbans delta.