August 21, 2017
EMAIL TO EDITOR
The Union Railway Minister has perhaps for the first time in the country’s history taken the quickest action removing or suspending senior railway officials, including a Railway Board member for the Khatauli rail-accident of August 19.
It was evidently a big human mistake that was cause for the accident. If things are to improve, there has to be accountability, be they politicians or bureaucrats. It was former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri who as Union Railway Minister in 1956 set an example by resigning after the Ariyalur railway accident which left more than 140 people dead. Earlier that year, he had put in his papers after the Mahabubnagar railway mishap though the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru did not accept the resignation.