SAFETY CONSIDERATIONS. In any project of public transport, the first concern of the government should be the safety of the traveling public. We have already seen that the former Managing Director of the Konkan Railway Corporation, B. Rajaram, whose brain child the Skybus project was, lied to the government and the citizens of Goa about the safety of the project. He claimed that it was an already tested and proven technology, and that it merely needed the approval of the State Government to be implemented. In hindsight, studying some of the documents submitted by Rajaram, it becomes obvious that he was involved in lying and subterfuge criminal actions for which he should be prosecuted. He made unsubstantiated claims and was himself exposed by the tragic accident of September 25, 2004. In effect, Rajaram perpetrated a massive fraud on the people of Goa.
Now comes the proposal to set up a monorail system in Goa, again on unsubstantiated and very doubtful grounds. It is a shame for the people of Goa that they have a government that approves a proposal without first studying it very carefully. What emerges from a cursory study of the various projects is that there are a few strong lobbies operating in India, some of them headed by influential former bureaucrats, which are jostling for permission to set up their (untested) projects in Goa as a first step to having them adopted in other cities throughout the country. They are seeking to make Goa the testing ground, the experimental laboratory, for their dubious projects. Unfortunately for us Goans, our governments have proven to be, and are continuing to be easy prey for these purveyors of Hi-tech talk. Our Government cannot be trusted to safeguard the interest of the citizens of Goa. We need to awake and come together to demand that our government be accountable to the citizens, and to take us into confidence before according sanction to any project of a public nature. JURISDICTION. Mr. B. Rajaram concedes that Basically the Skybus Metro System is a modified railway improving the safety parameters; the center of gravity of mass carried by wheels is brought closer to the railway wheel-rail guidance support point as compared to railway. Later on in his note, Rajaram states that Since Ministry of Railways do not want to classify Skybus under Railway Act, then center has no authority on the safety issue tramway act under the constitution applies and State Govt. becomes the rule making authority, even though all the rules are similar to the railway rules only, for the Skybus too because it is a 100% railway technology based system only improved to avoid derailments/and collisions which routinely occur on conventional railway systems. This is a very clever manipulation of the argument to escape the stringent safety precautions which are prescribed in the Indian Railways Act. The Tramways Act is less demanding when it comes to safety requirements for the system. Rajaram is placing the onus on the Central Government for not classifying the Skybus as a railway system. If, as he so vehemently claims, the Skybus is in fact a railway system, albeit with improved safety measures (which is now disproved with the September 25th., 2004 accident), he should pursue the matter with the Central Government to have the Skybus accepted as a railway system and brought under the Indian Railways Act. As it is, after the Margao accident, the Commissioner for Railway Safety was brought in as the investigating officer, and everyone is waiting ( anxiously ) for his report. The thing that becomes clear is that Rajaram is exploiting the lacunae in the Law to escape the scrutiny which is legally necessary before a system is authorized as safe for commercial operations. The promoters of the Monorail, to whose blandishments Chief Minister Rane (and his Transport Minister ) appears to have succumbed are following in the footsteps of Rajaram to have the monorail installed in Goa. One thing has become strikingly clear to the citizens of Goa - that is that all these promoters of mass transport systems are making Goa a testing site for their untested and unproven technologies. We Goans should put a stop to this manipulation. We have already had the unfortunate experience of the Skybus. We have the River Princess lying in the most prominent tourist location in Goa for over four years. The Goa Government is not capable of having her removed. The Skybus hangs its head in shame as a failed experiment. Goans should not allow Goa to become the cemetery for failed experiments of over-ambitious operators who want to make their fortunes at our cost. E n d. Averthanus L. DSouza, D-13, La Marvel Colony, Dona Paula, Goa 403 004. Tel: 2453628. INDIAN RAILWAYS - Fact Sheet. The Indian Railways is over 150 years old, and has accumulated a wealth of experience and technical know-how unequalled anywhere else in the world. The Indian Railways has over 100,000 track kilometers of rail lines and about 65,000 route kms. It employees 17 lakh workers. It is the largest government organization under a single management in the world. It runs 9,000 goods trains and 6,000 passenger trains every day. It carries about 15 million passengers per day, which is the equivalent of the entire urban population of Australia. It carries 1.5 million tones of freight per day. It manages about 7,000 railway stations throughout the country. It is the cheapest mode of transport anywhere in the world. It consumes 17,088 million liters of diesel per year. It uses 11,000 million units of electricity annually. It has 400,000 wagons to carry freight and 50,000 passenger coaches. It has 4,500 diesel locomotives and 3,500 electric locomotives. The Indian Railways has production units of the highest international standards at Chittaranjan, W. Bengal; Varanasi in U.P.; Chennai in Tamil Nadu; Patiala in the Punjab; Kapurthala and Bangalore in Karnataka. During the year 2004 it produced: 43 electric locomotives in the CLW, Chittaranjan 88 diesel locomotives in the DLW, Varanasi 817 coaches in the ICF, Chennai rebuilt 54 locomotives in DMW, Patiala 817 coaches in the RCF Kapurthala 84,856 wheels and 40,959 axels in the Rail Wheel Factory, Bangalore.