Not possible to man every Railway crossing: Govt

New Delhi, Mar 3 (UNI) The Government today said it was not possible to man every railway crossing in the country at present as it required a massive capital investment.

The railways would require Rs 2200 crore for the works if all crossing were to be manned, which was not possible now, Minister of State for Railways R Velu told the Rajya Sabha during the Question Hour.

He was replying to supplementaries on a question on Railway Safety Fund.

The Minister said that no authority had been found responsible for the passenger train accident that took place between Dumrikhurd and Kanhan stations of Nagpur Division of South East Central Railway on February 3 last year.

''The accident happened due to negligence of the motor trolley driver, who failed to observe normal precaution while crossing the unmanned level crossing,'' he said.

Responding to Ms Najma Heptullah's suggestion that MPs should use their Local Area Development funds for to fund manning of crossings, the Minister said the Government would look into this suggestion.

He also said the Railways would introduce Anti-Colision Device (ACD) in all the section of their operations, though its cost was very high. At present, ACD covers 1000 km of railway route in North-Eastern Railway and the system will be introduced in 1000 km stretch in Southern and South-Central railway too, the Minister said.

Replying to another question by Ms Sushma Swaraj (BJP) regarding the increase of wagon tonnage putting stress on tracks, the Minister said the government had allowed increased tonnage after studying the load-bearing capacity of tracks.

UNI NAZ VD ND1316