Railways' safety planning drive faces zonal and internal challenges

The Ministry of Railways, which has been trying to implement an operational safety planning system inspired by Japanese railways, continues to face issues from its own divisions and has asked erring departments to fall in line, according to sources aware of the developments. 

The national transporter’s Rolling Block Planning mechanism was launched in the aftermath of the deadly 2023 Balasore crash, which had claimed 300 lives and injured over 1,100. 

Now, several divisions, which operate under the 17 railway zones in India, have been either failing to submit their block plans repeatedly or sending them with delays, derailing this crucial safety exercise. 

According to sources, the ministry had to issue a letter in April to several divisions that they were not following the programme despite repeated weekly monitoring at the ministry’s highest levels. 

In December, the railway board had issued a joint procedure order (an extension of its previous order in August 2023), where it had said that the 26-week rolling block plan will be a broad road map for execution of the planned engineering, electrical, and signalling works which require traffic/overhead equipment blocks or disconnection of signalling gears. 

Since that period, 21 divisions have failed to comply with timely submission of their rolling block plans, the railways have communicated to zones.  “Rolling block utilisation is also one of the Key Performance Indicators of annual performance of zonal railways. The weekly position of the plan on every Saturday is being monitored at the highest level. However, it is observed that few divisions are more frequently found in exception to not adhering to timely submission of their position,” the railways told general managers of all zones. These include nine divisions, Chakradharpur, Hyderabad, Izzatnagar, Varanasi, Lucknow, Sambalpur, Lumding, Palakkad, and Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay (formerly Mughalsarai), which have not submitted their plans entirely for several weeks. 

19 divisions, including some from the above mentioned, have submitted their plans, albeit with a delay. 

The ministry reiterated that implementation of rolling block plan as per guidelines should be reviewed by divisional railway managers more qualitatively with emphasis on utilisation to further improve upon efficiency and output for proper asset maintenance, sources said. 

Queries sent to the Ministry of Railways on April 22 and those sent to eight railway zones remained unanswered by the time of publishing.  

A block refers to a period of a few hours where train operations are completely shut off in a certain area so that repair works in electrical equipment, tracks, signalling, and civil engineering can be undertaken. All crucial and planned maintenance is part of the rolling block mechanism now. 

After the Balasore accident, the ministry had introduced a rolling block programme of 26 weeks (six months) to deal with the menace of scattered and unorganised block periods, where pre-planned blocks will continue to be updated every week so that the upcoming block status is always known for the next 26 weeks. 

“This will be watched seriously. The programmes should come to the railway board. This is to be implemented immediately,” then railway board chairman Anil Lahoti had told zonal railways after the accident, adding that field officials must not be constrained in asking for blocks. 

SAFETY ISSUES

 

* In December 2024, the Railway Board issued a joint order on engineering, electrical, and signalling works

 

-  21 railways divisions have failed to comply with timely submission of rolling block plans since December 2024

 

-  9 divisions found not adhering to timely submission of their position

  -  19 divisions have  submitted their plans, with a delay

 

* Ministry reiterated implementation of rolling block plan according to guidelines