Three lakh vacancies, slashed funds, ignored requests: Opposition slams govt

Digital Desk: Three lakh positions in the railways are vacant, the Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge highlighted in a series of tweets on Sunday. He noted that high-level positions that are filled through the Prime Minister's Office have also been vacant for the past nine years.

In an official letter, Kharge claimed that on February 8, 2023, the principal chief operations manager of the South Western Railway Zone requested restoration of the signalling system, citing an event in Mysuru in which two trains avoided a collision. He asked, "Why didn't the Ministry of Railways do anything about it?"

"According to CAG, when Rs 20,000 crore was supposed to be made available annually, funding for Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh was cut by 79%. Why has the number of track renewal projects drastically decreased?" He questioned why the government had only installed the Kavach anti-collision technology on 4% of the routes.

In the meantime, the NCP on Sunday questioned whether the Centre had followed the recommendations made in the 2022 Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report to reduce train accidents, and if not, whether it was time for Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw to step down. NCP spokesperson Clyde Crasto questioned if the railway minister had read the CAG study, which identified 24 causes of derailments.