Lost in the tragedy of the Samjhauta Express attack is one familiar story: five years ago, if coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express turned into a veritable death-trap in Godhra once the fire began, the same happened to the two coaches of the Samjhauta Express on Sunday night. And, in both cases, barred windows not only prevented anyone from escaping but the inflammable interiors fueled the fire.

Railway officials say that climate and security considerations translate into barred windows for non-airconditioned coaches — each coach has an emergency exit on either side — so the effort has to be to ensure that the interiors are fire-retardant.

Consider the seriousness with which the Railways treated this. In 2005, it entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with French national railways, SNCF, seeking technical assistance to manufacture “fire-retardant” coaches. Having fire-retardant material helps in slowing down the fire, reduces toxicity and allows passengers time to escape. The first phase in the French offer included computer simulation of coaches to test how fire-retardant these were. But so long did the Railways sleep over this offer that its validity expired.

It was only recently that the Railways’ Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) in Lucknow got a Rs 96-lakh estimate worked out to revive the offer and pushed it through the Ministry in a bid to get it cleared this Budget.

This isn’t the only instance of Rail Bhawan’s casual approach when it comes to fire-safety. A proposal to set up a fire-testing laboratory at RDSO to facilitate testing of fire-retardancy on coaches is still entangled in bureaucratic maze, awaiting clearance.

... contd.