Nearly half of Bihar's railway crossings are unmanned

A day after a major train accident in Uttar Pradesh, railway officials in Bihar and Jharkhand are worried as nearly half of the railway crossings in the state remain unmanned in the five divisions of the East Central Railway, making them vulnerable to accidents.

Railway officials of ECR believe that unmanned railway level crossings pose a serious threat to people. They have blamed the Bihar government of being apathetic to repeated requests for constructing manned railway crossings to prevent any untoward incidents.

According to ECR sources, nearly 1,042 of the 2038 railway level crossings in ECR are unmanned. The Samastipur division of ECR has 509 unmanned railway crossings.

"Due to the unmanned railway level crossings, nearly 16 percent of the total deaths in railway accidents happen at unmanned crossings," said Nira Ambashth, chief public relations officer of ECR headquarters at Hajipur, near Patna.

More than three lakh people use unmanned railway level crossings each day in ECR divisions.

The ECR officials have recently blamed the state government for creating at least 80 unmanned railway crossings in Danapur division. They pointed that most of the unmanned crossings have been created during construction of rural roads.

L M Jha, the divisional railway manager of Danapur, in a letter to the state road construction department, has requested that Rs 2.26 crore should be spent to set up manned railway crossings.

Every year, a number of train accidents take place in ECR due to unmanned railway level crossings.