Railways end 3,478 unmanned level crossings, only one left

New Delhi (IANS) Keeping its promise of providing safe rail travel, the Railways have achieved its target of eliminating all unmanned level crossings except for one in Allahabad division, the government said on Monday.

According to a senior Railway Ministry official, the Indian Railways has eliminated as many as 3,478 unmanned level crossings in the last year.

The last one was done way within Jodhpur division on January 5 on the Barmer-Munabao section, where the crossing was converted into the manned crossing.

The official said the last unmanned level crossing in Uttar Pradesh had not yet been ended due to local resistance but it was likely to happen this year.

"Indian Railways is in constant touch with state authorities to sort out the issue," the official who did not wish to be named told IANS. 

The achievement comes after Railway Minister Piyush Goyal prioritized the manning of the level crossings after a deadly accident in Uttar Pradesh in April last year that killed 13 school children when a passenger train crashed into a van at an unmanned railway crossing. 

The official also said that the railways eliminated 1,253 UMLCs in 2015-16. In the last seven months, progress improved more than five times as compared to the last years.

According to the Ministry official, in 2014-15 at least 130 people died in incidents at unmanned level crossings. The number fell to 58 in 2015-16 and to 40 in 2016-17. In 2017-18, 26 people died while from April 1 to December 15, 2018, there were only 16 such deaths.