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.
On the other hand, train punctuality is often affected due to failure of locomotives, defects in coaches and wagons, signal failures etc.
The gov
