Elphinstone accident propels Railway Security Commissioner to act

From the documents accessed by RTI Activist Anil Galgali, it has come to light that, the Railways security Commissioner is equally responsible along with the Railway Administration for the loss of lives of innocent commuters in the infamous Elphinstone station accident. The file pertaining to the bridge connecting the Parel and Elphinstone station was held up at the Railway Security Commissioner's Office and not immediately cleared even after the accident. The Commissioner put his necessary remarks only after 14 days had passed after the accident. 

RTI Activist Anil Galgali had sought information from the Central Railway Administration about the progress in the past 3 years of the Development of the Parel Railway bridge. The Divisional Engineer of the Central Railway Shri S K Srivastava allowed Galgali to do the inspection of the related files. The inspected files also contained letters written by the Railway Security Commissioner to the Chief Engineer, Central Railway which refers to the note informing the Railway Security Commissioner about the Parel station pedestrian bridge. The Railway Security Commissioner A K Jain didn't do anything on the note for almost 3 months. He woke only after the infamous accident on the very Elphinstone station bridge which claimed many innocent lives and made a visit to the site along with the Cheif Engineer and Cheif Bridges Engineer on 11th October 2017 and cleared the file along with the report showing his visit of 11th October, the very next day i.e on 12th October 2017. In the report the Railway Security Commissioner mentioned that the Entrance and Exiting ways are small and congested, and since the way towards the road for going and coming is not proper it was not advisable to start additional services at Parel station. He further advised in his report that since the commuters of both the Central and Western Railway are using this common bridge a combined planning needs immediate attention and the Master plan for Development should be initiated along with the Western Railway and the state government for common Development and if needed then stage wise planning of the Construction. 

In a letter addressed to PM Narendra Modi, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, and Civil Aviation Minister Gajpathi Raju, Anil Galgali has suggested that since report and responsibilities of the Railways Security Commissioner is important, there should be a defined time frame within which the commissioner should submit the reports and clear his observations. Had the report been cleared on time the possibility of the project being started earlier would had been possible and this could have saved the lives of those commuters which were lost in the accident stated Galgali. He further demanded that the Railways should establish a special cell to give approval to outside agencies engaged in Development of public projects and facilities like online submission and approval of permissions should be started.