The government's policy to `indigenise at any cost and to minimise imports was adopted' by the Indian industry `with grant of concessions in quality'. This deliberate compromise with quality is one of the reasons for railway accidents and poor punctuality.
This was stated, here yesterday, by S Ramanathan, general manager, Eastern Railway, while speaking on the issue of Quality of Industrial Products used on Indian Railways at a seminar organised by the CII (eastern region) on Railway-Industry Partnership for Railway Transport in the 21st Century.
Ramanathan stated that the accident at Khanna killing 200 passengers was due to a rail fracture. The derailment of Grand Trunk Express near Mathura was on account of derailment of a goods train on the adjoining track. The goods wagons derailed due to a failure of the roller bearing followed by axle breakage.
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On the other hand, train punctuality is often affected due to failure of locomotives, defects in coaches and wagons, signal failures etc.
The gov