Prayagraj: The Railway Board has announced a significant policy change to enhance train safety by eliminating private agencies from the inspection of critical safety components. This decision affects the quality checks on essential elements such as brakes, wheels, springs, and couplers. The move aims to strengthen the oversight of these vital safety parts, ensuring that they meet rigorous standards to prevent train accidents.
The decision reverses a key provision of the third-party inspection policy introduced by the Railway Board on Jan 4, 2023. Field-level technical problems, including hot axle incidents involving wheel seizure, coupler failures between wagons, defects in coach springs and brake binding, were repeatedly reported, raising concerns over the safety of trains and freight operations.
A senior official of the Board said that the air brake systems of freight trains, CTRB bearings of wheels, coach components and CBC couplers will now mandatorily be inspected by RDSO, irrespective of the number or value of the purchase order. Under the policy, the inspection of several railway equipment and components could be assigned to private agencies depending on the value and quantity of purchase orders. The objective was to speed up inspection and reduce the workload on RDSO. However, concerns emerged over the quality of some safety-related components despite third-party inspection.