Awareness programme on crossing railway tracks in Visakhapatnam

In recent times, the Waltair Railway Division has observed that unfortunate accidents are happening to people while crossing railway tracks and travelling on train footboards in the Visakhapatnam District. Hence, it launched an awareness programme on Tuesday to educate people about safer travel and not crossing unguarded railway tracks.

As per railway statistics, a total of 185 accidents have been reported from people crossing unguarded railway tracks in this year itself (till August) in the Waltair Division, specifically in Visakhapatnam. 

Taking note of these accidents, Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) Anup Kumar Satpathy emphasised the importance of large-scale awareness programmes to arrest the trend of such accidents. The Railway Protection Force (RPF), under the guidance of Senior Divisional Security Commissioner Ch Raghuvir, participated in the awareness programme. DRM Satpathy also joined the awareness campaign at Vizianagaram railway station and counselled the passengers regarding safe travel and also on following Covid-19 protocol. 

Last month, a 40-year-old had been killed by an oncoming goods train while crossing an unguarded railway track in Visakhapatnam District. The woman’s death had led to protests by the locals at the accident site, asking for the railway authorities to improve the safety measures at various railway crossings in the district.

Web portal e-Suvidha launched: 

The Railway Protection Force of Waltair Division has taken one more step towards digitisation and automation. In order to improve the service conditions of RPF personnel, the Railway Board has developed a web portal RPF e-Suvidha. 

For this portal, all user credentials were created and the entire bio-data and various leave particulars of all RPF personnel in the Waltair Division were added to the database. A pilot test had been conducted in July and August for casual leave through this portal.