Indian Railways (IR) has spent Rs 9768.25 crore this fical for rair and maintenance of railway tracks.
He said this in a reply to a query in the Parliament. The total expenditure incurred year-wise by IR since FY17 is as follows:
| Year | Total expenditure on Repairs & Maintenance of Permanent Way & Works ( in Rs crore) |
| 2016-17 | 12244.36 |
| 2017-18 | 13499.96 |
| 2018-19 | 14558.75 |
| 2019-20 (Upto 31st October, 2019) | 9768.25 |
He also informed the house that the total number of accidents on IR decreased from 78 in FY17 to 26 in FY20 (to date). The break-up is as follows:
| Zonal Railway | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 (Upto 31st October, 2019) |
| Central | 7 | 8 | 4 | 5 |
| Eastern | 5 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| East Central | 13 | 6 | 6 | 3 |
| East Coast | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 |
| North Central | 4 | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| North Eastern | 1 | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| Northeast Frontier | 5 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| North Western | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 |
| Northern | 10 | 10 | 10 | 4 |
| South Central | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| South Eastern | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 |
| South East Central | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| South Western | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Southern | 7 | 3 | 4 | 1 |
| West Central | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Western | 8 | 4 | 2 | 3 |
| Konkan | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Kolkata Metro | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| TOTAL | 78 | 54 | 46 | 29 |
IR has taken several measures to avoid accidents and improve safety on its tracks. They are:
- For the current year i.e. 2019-20, 2643 km track renewal has been carried out up to October, 2019. During 2018-19, 4181 km track renewal had been carried out.
- Modern track structure consisting of pre-stressed concrete sleeper (PSC), 60kg, 90 or higher ultimate tensile strength (UTS) rails, fan-shaped layout turnout on PSC sleepers, steel channel sleepers on girder bridges are used for primary track renewals.
- Long rail panels of 260M/130M length are being manufactured at the steel plant to minimize number of alumino thermit joints in the track.
- Provision of thick web switches (TWS) is planned for all important routes of IR. To expedite provision of TWS, procurement of thick web switches has been decentralized to zonal railways.
- Cold weather patrolling of railway tracks is being done during the coldest part of the night during winter to detect weld/rail fractures .
- Ultrasonic Flaw Detection (USFD) testing of rails to detect flaws and timely removal of defective rails. USFD vehicular testing system has been introduced and implemented successfully on Northern Railway.
- GPS trackers are being provided to keymen and patrolmen to monitor their movement and to report any unsafe condition noticed by them instantaneously.
- Mechanization of track maintenance is being carried out to reduce human error.
- Track management system has been introduced on Indian Railways for development of database and decision support system and to decide/rationalize maintenance requirement and optimize inputs.
- Safety drives and inspections at regular intervals are carried out to monitor and educate staff for observance of safe practices.
