Piyush Goyal makes FOBs a matter of 'safety', not just 'amenity'

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: Faced with a huge public outcry after the stampede on Elphinstone Road-Parel station foot over-bridge (FOB) in which the toll rose to 23 on Saturday, railway minister Piyush Goyal said FOBs, earlier considered only a "passenger amenity, "would now be "mandatory" as passenger safety items at all railway stations across the country.

At a meeting of the Railway Board in Mumbai to review safety measures on the suburban railway network, Goyal decided that 13 FOBs in the city will be widened, while 10 new ones will be provided on Western Railway and 20 on Central Railway -all within a year, he said.

"Every commuter of Mumbai suburban (network) is as important as a Rajdhani passenger and should be treated like that," Goyal said.

Goyal said, "To eliminate bureaucracy and delays, I have empowered GMs (general managers) to spend whatever is necessary on safety."

Financial and administra tion powers would be delegated to field units in two weeks to reduce red tape, he added.

Goyal has fixed a window to address safety issues -the GMs shall intimate financial commissioners within a week of sanction of funds for a project, and the FCs shall confirm it in 15 days. In case of disagreement, the matter shall be referred to the Railway Board, which has to take a decision within the same 15-day period.

CCTV cameras will be installed in all Mumbai suburban trains in 15 months and subsequently, across India. Extra escalators will come up at Mumbai's "high-use "suburban stations and subsequently at all stations in the country .

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Hours after the stampede, Suresh Prabhu, who was railway minister till less than a month ago and now holds the commerce and industry portfolio in the Modi cabinet, took the highly unusual step (reported in TOI yesterday) of publicly blaming the very administration he had headed for its "lackadaisical and negligent" approach in not following up on his Rs 12 crore sanction in April 2015 for a wider foot over-bridge at Elphinstone Road station. Prabhu said the file was "ignored" and tenders were not called. Had the contract been awarded for construction, "the tragedy would have been avoided and 22 people would not have lost their lives for no reason", he said.

All of this begs the following questions. If negligence caused these deaths, as a serving Union cabinet minister says it has, will criminal prosecution be instituted against the officials responsible? If the government doesn't, will the families of victims approach the courts? Prabhu was railway minister for two and a half years after he sanctioned the FOB project; wasn't there any follow-up or status report during this time? If not, why not?

A nine-month-old and an eight-year-old lost their mother who on Friday chose to take the train instead of walking, as she usually did; so many other families have been devastated by tragically avoidable deaths of their children and parents. They deserve to know why.