Improvements in Unmanned rail crossings in India..

• To put what has happened in larger perspective, an RTI query from the Railway Board revealed that between 2014 and the end of March 2018, a total of 23,013 passengers were killed while trespassing railway tracks, alighting from running trains or falling off trains while standing close to the door.  

• On the other hand, according to National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) data, in 2015, 18,259 people died after falling from running train or in collision on railway tracks. So thousands of people are dying in our country each year through accidents on railway tracks. 

• The Government has not always been a silent bystander - a government committee report in 2012 accused authorities of a "massacre" after a report revealed that approximately 15,000 people died every year trying to cross train tracks in India. The report said previous recommendations to make the world's fourth largest railway system safer had been ignored.

• The report called on the government to urgently replace all railroad crossings with bridges or overpasses over the next five years. I am glad to say this is one area where the Government and the Railways have been working : On average, about 1250 unmanned level crossings have been eliminated each year starting 2012-13, till 2016-'17. Out of the roughly 29000 level crossings across India, 6000 or nearly 30% are still unmanned as of February 2018, but work to eliminate them is ongoing every year. The number of accidents on unmanned crossings has come down from 53 in 2012-13 to 20 in 2016-17.