NEW DELHI: The Indian Railways will spend Rs 15,000 crore over the next 12 months to make travelling safer for passengers.The money will be spent on improving safety features on trains, tracks and stations on a “war footing”, a top railway ministry official said.This will include installing elevators and constructing more foot-overbridges FOBs ) at all high density stations to help clear passenger traffic during rush hours. “Rail Board chairman Ashwani Lohani has already instructed general managers to go for an immediate audit and sanction works at the earliest,” the official said.The announcement follows Friday’s stampede at the Elphinstone-Parel foot-over-bridge in Mumbai that killed at least 23 people. The Rail Board has empowered all general managers to spend on safety works on their own without waiting for any budgetary allocation or clearance. Besides, station directors have been empowered to take quick decisions in case there is a pile up of passengers at stations.The Mumbai suburban network, which includes both the central and western railways, will get 10 new FOBs along with elevators to avoid a repeat of any such incident. The rail board has also decided to equip all major stations with CCTV cameras for better management of crowds during the peak hours.All stations in an around Delhi will also be equipped with the same facilities at the earliest. Almost 2,000 CCTVs will be installed at 400 major stations. Rail minister Piyush Goyal has ordered that all this work should be completed on the Mumbai suburban network and at all major stations well within 15 months.“Not only the Mumbai suburban network but stations around Delhi where lakhs of daily commuters use railways to reach the capital for work will also get additional FOBs and elevators,” the official said.The government has approved a Rs 1lakh crore dedicated Rail Safety Fund, which will be used for overhauling rail tracks, constructing foot-over-bridges, eliminating unmanned level crossings, upgrading network signalling and for installing CCTV cameras. The fund will be spent over five years.