Railways : Accidents & Insurance Policy ( II )

   In the country to ply any vehicle insurance is must and if anybody skip from insurance of his/her vehicle then he/she is entitle for fine of one thousand rupees or three months jail or both under section 146 of Motor Vehicle Act 1988, or in other words any vehicle runs on Indian roads should have mandatory below coded valid documents –

• Insurance policy
• Registration Certificate
• Driving License

Missing of any above document is offense and entitle for fine. This term is applicable on all the vehicles from moped to Airplane, but its shocking to code here that in the country one of the most use mode of travel Railways is running without insurance. As per railways sources passengers are entitle for below coded compensation from railways at the time of accidents –

• Five lakhs rupees to the kin of dead
• One lakh rupees if passenger become handicapped
• Twenty five thousand rupees if passenger injured

Question rises here if railways have not taken insurance policy then how it is able to compensate the passengers, well its straight forward answer is that Railways compensating the passengers from its budget and during 2009-10 financial year Railways had disbursed 1.4 billion rupees as compensation.

    Railways is one of most preferred and used traveling mode of Indians and as per rough stats on daily basis railways moves three million peoples from one place to another, but it is shocking to code that railways have not taken any insurance policy. It is ridiculous that it is running without opting insurance, infect till 2008 it keep on taking insurance and had spent rupees 770 million on to insurance in the year 2008, but next year amount of premium was increase by insurance companies by ten million rupees which railways officials deny to award the insurance contract to any company and since then railways have not taken insurance policy, ironically in the run to save 10 million rupees in the year 2009-10 railways have paid 1.4 billion rupees as compensation on to 100 railways accidents to dead or injured hence had disbursed 620 million rupees more from its budget as it has not opted any insurance, on just recently rail accidents railways has to give 100 million rupees. One of the shocking side of this story is that if any vehicle without insurance, is not allow to run on roads, even in this regard plane does not allow to take off, then why railway is getting relaxation on which terms to run without insurance, its answer is lies with the concerned authority. One of the explanation comes from the railways officials that incurrence companies are increasing premium on yearly basis which has no logic but on other hand insurance companies are saying that they have no other option but to increase premium as railway passengers are increasing as well as accidents of railways.

    Railways should take measures on safety of railways on priority basis, so that it can convince insurance companies to lower their premium and also passengers get safe and sound journey towards their destinations, otherwise blaming others is ridiculous move and nobody will accept this logic easily.