Railways security Commissioner is equally responsible along with the Railway Administration for the loss of lives of innocent commuters in the infamous Elphinstone station accident, revealed by an RTI reply filed by Activist Anil Galgali.
“The file pertaining to the bridge connecting the Parel and Elphinstone station was held up at the Railway Security Commissioner’s Office and not immediately cleared even after the accident. The Commissioner put his necessary remarks only after 14 days had passed after the accident,” the documents further mentioned.
Galgali had sought information from the Central Railway Administration about the progress in the past three years of the Development of the Parel Railway Bridge. The provided reply also contained letters written by the Railway Security Commissioner to the Chief Engineer, Central Railway which refers to the note informing the Railway Security Commissioner about the Parel station pedestrian bridge.
“The Railway Security Commissioner A K Jain didn’t do anything on the note for almost three months. He woke only after the infamous accident on the very Elphinstone station bridge which claimed many innocent lives and made a visit to the site along with the Chief Engineer and Chief Bridges Engineer on October 11, 2017 and cleared the file along with the report showing his visit, the very next day on October 12, 2017,” exclaimed Galgali.
The report also reveals that the Entrance and Exiting ways are small and congested, and since the way towards the road for going and coming is not proper it was not advisable to start additional services at Parel station. “Since the commuters of both the Central and Western Railway are using this common bridge a combined planning needs immediate attention and the Master plan for Development should be initiated along with the Western Railway and the state government for common Development and if needed then stage wise planning of the Construction,” Railway Security Commissioner further advised in his report.
In a letter addressed to PM Narendra Modi, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, and Civil Aviation Minister Gajpathi Raju, Galgali has suggested that since report and responsibilities of the Railways Security Commissioner is important, there should be a defined time frame within which the commissioner should submit the reports and clear his observations.
“Had the report been cleared on time the possibility of the project being started earlier would had been possible and this could have saved the lives of those commuters which were lost in the accident,” stated Galgali. He further demanded that the Railways should establish a special cell to give approval to outside agencies engaged in Development of public projects and facilities like online submission and approval of permissions should be started.
