Passenger safety high on new rly minister's agenda

Trinamool Congress leader Dinesh Trivedi, who was sworn in as the railway minister today, said he would have “zero tolerance” for any compromise on safety. More than 770 lives have been lost and over 1,200 people injured in train accidents since 2008.

The new minister, elevated into the Cabinet, also indicated that safety of passengers would remain a high priority agenda for him in the wake of two train accidents on Sunday that claimed over 70 lives and left more than 300 injured.

“Safety never sleeps. There should not be even a single accident. It has to be zero tolerance,” Trivedi told a television news channel. In a separate interaction with the media, he also announced a job each for the next of kin of the deceased in the Sunday’s mishap.

Within minutes of taking oath, Trivedi, 61, rushed in a special flight to the accident site at Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh, where 15 bogies of a speeding Delhi-bound Kalka Mail had derailed on Sunday. Later on that day, six coaches of the Guwahati-Puri Express derailed following a blast near Rangia in Assam.

The Barrackpore MP has not yet formally taken charge of his office in the Rail Bhawan.

Trivedi, seen as a close aide of his predecessor Mamata Banerjee, also said he would follow Banerjee’s footsteps in the Rail Bhawan. “All that a minister has to do is follow the guidelines of the Vision 2020 document. In those guidelines, safety is number one priority,” he said.