Mr. Vice-Chairman, the Minister of Railways has given us some impressive figures regarding route mileage, the number of passenger trains that run every day, the number of goods trains that run every day, the number of millions of passengers who travel by train. He has tried to compare them. In view of the vastness of the country, the large number of passenger trains being run, the large number of goods trains being run and the big route mileage, he has tried to show that the number of accidents that have occurred is not quite alarming. I do not know what his idea was when he tried to compare the number of accidents against this background. Committees have been appointed when serious accidents took place to find out why such and such accident took place. The Shah Nawaz Committee, which was appointed in 2006, gave a very voluminous report. Therein, they had stated the causes of accidents that occurred during the period before, and they had also suggested some preventive measures. The Government have again appointed another Committee headed by Dr. Kunzru. It is more than eight months or so. I do not know why an interim report has not been submitted by this committee. It would have been better, at least for discussion on such an important subject like this, if that Committee had submitted an interim report. We could have offered more constructive suggestions. Unfortunately, the Committees that are appointed take their own time to submit their reports. Maybe, the Government is partly responsible, for they may not be co-operating with the Committee in giving all the material that is necessary for the Committee to come to some sort of conclusions and give their findings on such an important question. Time and again, we have discussed this question of accidents, and I was really pained to see how the Minister tried to minimise the seriousness of the railway accidents. He also quoted in the other House the figures, the number of accidents that are taking place in other countries, particularly America and England. The conditions that are obtaining in these countries and that are obtaining in India are totally different. There, many of the accidents take place not because of follies, not because of the limitations under which those railways work, but mostly because of the environment that there has been in those countries. So, he did not mention the figures here but took refuge under the guise that our railways work much better than the railways work in other countries and that the rate of accidents in India is much lower than the rate of accidents in America or England. Sir, by having this discussion, the Railway Board and the Railway Ministry should be able to learn some lessons, and if they are prepared to implement the salient suggestions that will be made by the Members, then many of these discussions will not take place and many of the accidents that take place these days will not occur. It has now become almost an everyday affair. After the statement was made by the hon. Minister in this House and the other House, another accident had occurred to a De-luxe train. It is therefore incumbent and imperative on the part of the Railway Ministry to see whether they could avoid these accidents. Many of the accidents that have occurred have occurred not because they are accidents but because of the wrong things done by the Railway Ministry. When a train leaves the station, care is not taken to see whether it has a defective engine, defective locomotive, whether proper check was made of it, whether the bogies that are attached to the train are properly checked up, whether the screws and bolts that are there are properly placed in their proper places, and so on. These are all things which, if properly inspected, will show whether the train is fit for travel or not, and if these things are properly adhered to, many of the accidents will not occur. A Member in the other House has reported a statement from "The Statesman" of Kolkata that the locoshed people asked the driver of a particular train to somehow manage; even though he complained that he could not take the train. He tried to manage. When the train arrived very late, he was said to have been man handled by the crowd for the late arrival of the train, and he is reported to have stated to the correspondent that in spite of the protest that he made, he was asked to take that locomotive which was very defective. Last year, similar accidents occurred, for instance, the Ranchi accident. It is also reported that the engine driver protested when he was asked to take the train because the engine was defective. But in spite of his protests, he was forced to take that engine and an accident occurred. I am glad that an Enquiry Commission has been appointed to go into the cause of the accident. Submit