Two months before Odisha accident, railway board pulled up signalling staff for using 'short cuts' to clear signals

"Such practices reflect dilution of manual and codal provisions. The same is a potential hazard to safety in train operations and needs to be stopped," the board's letter stated.

Expressing its dissatisfaction with the signalling department, the board said these incidents indicate that despite repeated instructions, the "ground situation is not improving and the signalling staffers are continuing to adopt short-cut methods" for clearing signals, without checking the correspondence from the sites and without a proper exchange of disconnection or re-connection memo with the operating staff.

"Joint works with engineering staffers, signal maintenance and other repair works requiring disconnection contained in IRSEM should indicate time duration catering provisions for testing signalling gears after completion of engineering works. The gears should be reconnected only after proper testing to ascertain safe certification of the signalling system," it said. The Railway Board also said several infrastructure projects are under progress with stringent targets and officers and staffers on the field need to be sensitised that the integrity of the signalling system is of utmost importance from a safety point of view.