Mumbai: The Railways on Tuesday said it will carry out a safety audit of nearly 445 road and overbridges and bridges over pipelines that cross the tracks at various points in the suburban section. A similar study was conducted by the Railways after the Elphinstone Road station stampede last year.
Railway Minister Piyush Goyal made the announcement after visiting Andheri on Tuesday, where a portion of a road overbridge (ROB) collapsed this morning due to heavy rain.
Mr. Goyal announced compensation of ₹1 lakh to each of the five injured in the mishap. “A joint safety audit will be conducted by the Railways, the BMC and IIT-Bombay of the 445 ROBs, foot overbridges (FOBs) and bridges over the pipelines in Mumbai as part of our efforts to improve safety of commuters,” Mr. Goyal said. He added that a structural audit of the bridge was conducted in November last year, and no visible signs of danger were detected. He said most audits had to be done at night after services had stopped for the day.
Terming Tuesday’s incident as extremely unfortunate, Mr. Goyal said he has already announced an inquiry by the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS), and has sought a report within 15 days. He told reporters that hundreds of Railways officers and employees were involved in restoration work on a war footing.
After the Elphinstone Road station stampede, a multi-disciplinary team did a thorough inspection and made recommendations, of which many have been implemented. These include building additional FOBs at stations, installing escalators and removing food stalls from platforms. It seems the railways wait for a tragedy and then conduct a study.