Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal on Friday urged Union railways minister Mamata Banerjee to direct the ministry to convert all the un-manned crossings in the state to manned crossings.
In a letter to the minister, Badal said there were 729 un-manned railway crossings in the state according to the record of Ferozepur and Ambala divisions of Indian Railways. Of these, 386 unmanned railway crossings were on metalled link roads/plan roads and the remaining was on katcha paths.
“There is huge public outcry regarding accidents on these sites and human rights organisations were also pressing for manning these un-manned level crossings,” added Badal. He also impressed upon Banerjee to immediately direct the top functionaries of the Railways to resolve this issue on top priority as the inordinate delay had already resulted in heavy death toll in the state.
Ferozepur district has the maximum number of 70 unmanned crossings followed by Jalandhar with 54, Gurdaspur 46, Tarn Taran 37 and Nawanshahar 30.