Sitting on the fence!

During the last few years the railway ministry has launched several new trains including the Sindh Express, Pakistan Express and the Jinnah Express. The latest among them is the Bhambore Express, exclusively meant for low-income travellers.The reservation of seats for some amongst us has also become easier as our federal railway minister says people can now reserve seats at any booking agency, even with their credit cards. The renovation of many railway stations has also given a much-needed facelift to these places while the eateries and other stalls on platforms speak volumes of the current, burgeoning trend of public-private partnerships. Furthermore, the official claim that the Pakistan Railways has earned Rs3 billion in annual revenue, which is an all-time high, is also impressive.However, despite all these supposedly inspiring achievements, the ministry appears helpless and the local government weak when it comes to the safety of the poor who have been living along railway tracks for decades.The simple and obvious solution is to fence the tracks. Though a feasibility report of fencing — with Rs18 million as the estimated cost — was sent to railway headquarters in Lahore a few months ago, the long delay in its approval and implementation put in doubt the efforts of those at the helm of affairs. And with the stated record annual earnings, the railway authorities must certainly not be facing a shortage of funds as a hurdle, at least in this project’s implementation.The officials blamed the delay in the project’s implementation on the poor who had encroached upon the railway’s lands, though the government still cannot absolve itself from the responsibility of giving protection to the lives of the people. Encroachers might have become a hurdle now, but methinks it’s the other way round: The absence of fences had invited the usurpers to encroach upon the railway’s lands.It seems it doesn’t matter if this year’s figure of fatal railway accidents in the city crosses 60.The media will routinely report any such accident when it happens, while officials will term such people ‘trespassers’ and will move on. After all, time’s a great healer. This is at least what has been the practice in 2006 and 2005 when, respectively, 48 and 65 ‘trespassers’ were killed after being hit by trains.Under the Pakistan Railway Act, moving on rail tracks in areas without a railway crossing or overhead bridge is a crime. The violators are considered ‘trespassers,’ and as per the law, any person found in violation of this rule may be fined Rs2,000 or serve a six-month prison sentence, or both. However, railway police officials say public protests prevent them from taking any action and suggest that fencing is the only way to stop this gross, dangerous violation.The densely populated areas around the Drigh railway station in the city are the worst-hit. Half of this year’s fatal accidents on the tracks had occurred here. Thousands of people cross the fence-less tracks on a daily basis and during the last eight years 297 have lost their lives while crossing the tracks here.A hundred feet of open space on either side of the track is mandatory to ensure the secure movement of trains as well as to avoid the loss of life, according to the PR rules. However, thousands of encroachers have occupied this mandatory space in Karachi. In some densely populated areas this space has even shrunk to five feet. Mind you, children cannot be chained all the time. So sitting on the fence will never resolve the issue. The grave risk involved calls for initiating the project at the earliest.—HA