Audit Report From Last Year Flagged Serious Concerns On Rail Safety

Coromandel Express Accident: The allotment of funds for track renewal works declined, funds allocated to track renewal works were also not fully utilised, the CAG report said.

While Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw today said the "root cause" of the horrific triple train collision in Odisha's Balasore, which claimed 288 lives and injured over 1,000 people, has been identified and will be revealed soon in a report, critics have pointed to an audit report of the railways tabled in the Parliament in September last year, which flagged several serious lapses in rail safety. The accident happened due to a change in "electronic interlocking", Mr Vaishnaw has said. The Railway Board has also detailed the sequence of events leading to the crash.

India's top auditing body, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, in a 2022 report on derailments in Indian Railways sought to find out whether measures to prevent derailments and collisions were clearly laid down and implemented by the rail ministry.

"There were shortfalls ranging from 30-100 per cent in inspections by Track Recording Cars required to assess geometrical and structural conditions of railway tracks," it said. 

The report also pointed to failures in the Track Management System, which is being widely discussed after the Odisha train crash.