Following the tragic triple train accident in Balasore district, Odisha, which claimed the lives of over 280 individuals, Indian Railways has taken action by transferring five high-ranking officials from the South Eastern Railway (SER).
These officials were responsible for crucial areas such as operations, signalling, and safety.
Despite the Railways' claims of the transfers being “routine”, many saw them as a direct consequence of the country's most devastating train accident in nearly three decades.
In separate decisions issued on Thursday, the Railway Board carried out the transfer of Shujat Hashmi, the Divisional Railway Manager of Kharagpur, and appointed K R Chaudhari, the Chairman of the Railway Recruitment Board in Ajmer, as his replacement, as per news agency PTI.
The SER zone's Principal Chief Signal and Telecommunication Engineer P M Sikdar has been transferred to North Central Railway as an officer on special duty. Chandan Adhikary, the Principal Chief Safety Officer, has been relocated to the Northeast Frontier Railway. Principal Chief Security Commissioner Kasar, who is the security custodian of all railway assets and structures, including track and fixtures, rolling stock, signalling gears and railway buildings and establishments, has also been transferred. Additionally, Md Owais, the Principal Chief Commercial Manager, has been transferred to the Northeast Frontier Railway and appointed as the Chief Administrative Officer.
In what is now seen to be the first significant response to the disaster, Atulya Sinha, the additional general manager of the zone, was relocated earlier, about a fortnight after the train accident.
The move was then referred to as "routine" by the Railways. Amitabh Sharma, a spokesman for Indian Railways, stated that all of these changes were "routine" on Thursday as well.
General Manager Archana Joshi remains in her position as one of the zone's top officials . An official announced that she will be retiring soon.
On June 2 at around 7 PM crash involving Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express, Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express and a goods train occurred, near the Bahanaga Bazar station in Balasore.
The section comes under Kharagpur division of the SER. More than 280 people were killed and around 1,000 injured due to this catastrophic incident.
The primary reason for the incident is believed to be a disruption in the automated signaling system, known as the interlocking system.
(With inputs from PTI)
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