Railways spent Rs 1.08 crore on safety works: Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw

NEW DELHI: Facing questions over the passenger safety in wake of the triple train accident in Odisha’s Balasore last month in which 293 passengers died, the government on Friday told Parliament that from 2017-18 to 2021-22, an expenditure of Rs 1.08 lakh crore was incurred on Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh (RRSK) or rail safe-ty-related works.

In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said: “RRSK was cre-ated in 2017-18 for execution of assessed safety works with a corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore over a period of five years. The projects taken up under this fund relate to track renewal, bridges, signalling, rolling stock, training and amenities for safety critical staff. RRSK works are to be funded from Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) and Railways revenues or resources including mobilisation of resources through Extra Budgetary Resources (EBR), as per Ministry of Fi-nance guidelines on RRSK.” “From 2017-18 till 2021-22 an expenditure of Rs 1.08 lakh crore was incurred on RRSK works.”

He also said that the Railway Safety Fund (RSF) was created in 2001-02 initially to fund works relating to Level Crossing and Road Over Bridge and Road Under Bridges. However, its scope has subsequently been expanded for capital expenditure on other safety works also, the minister said.

During the last five years, the RRSK and the RSF have been operated for expenditure on safety related works.

“Apart from this capital expenditure from Gross Budgetary Support, DRF and DF is made on safety related works. Between FY 2014-15 and FY 2022-23 the total expenditure and BE for FY 2023-24 amounts to Rs 1.78 lakh crore on safety related plan heads. This amount is about 2.5 times the amount spent on safety related plan heads during FY 2004-05 to FY 2013-14 (Rs 70,274 crore),” Vaishnaw highlighted. (IANS)

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