The Railways has rejected a Parliamentary standing committee recommendation to include a member in the Railway Board exclusively to deal with safety- related issues of the national carrier.

In its reply, the railways has said the safety aspect is integral to the construction, certification, operation and maintenance of the railway system and each member is responsible for their respective departments like rolling stock, infrastructure, etc..

“Overall coordination is done by the Member (Traffic), Railway Board. Hence, the question of separate member for safety is not pertinent,” it said.

While making the recommendation, the committee had said having a nodal department for safety would help synchronise micro-level measures into a holistic macro-level railway operations, unaffected by inter-departmental differences on the issue.

The standing committee report, which was tabled in the Lok Sabha today, said “such an attitude reflects the ministry’s unwillingness to relinquish age-old practises and procedures.”

“The committee feels that the Member (Traffic) is fully engrossed with running of trains through the entire railway network in India and the related works on a daily basis. A separate member for safety would be able to exclusively focus on safety issues of railways,” the committee said.

It reiterated the ministry should review its stand on the matter and give serious consideration to “optimising the composition of the railway board”.