Authorities advanced the March 2020 deadline after the Gorakhpur incident.

Unmanned level-crossings (UMLCs) may become a thing of the past on all the busy broad gauge tracks of the vast Indian Railways network by the end of this year. Taking a lesson from the Kushinagar in Gorakhpur distict incident in which 13 children were killed on the spot when a train hit a school van on 26 April this year, the Indian Railways decided to give a major push to elimination of UMLCs.

There were 3,479 unmanned railway crossings as on 1 April this year. In the last seven months, the railways has done away with as many as 3,402 of them owing to its special efforts. Thus, only 77 are left now, which railway officials hope will be covered by the next month.

A Railway Ministry official said most of these unmanned crossings have been eliminated either by subways/railway under-bridges or by manning them. “All unmanned level crossings on routes having speed more than 130 km per hour and on sub-urban routes have been eliminated,” he said, adding that “effectively, 12 out of 16 railway zones are now completely free of such crossings on broad gauge.”

The railways had earlier set a deadline of March 2020 to eliminate all the UMLCs. However, this deadline was advanced in the wake of the Gorakhpur tragedy. The reduction in UMLCs has brought down the number of accidents at these crossings. In 2009-10, as many as 65 people died at these crossings, while this number came down to 10 in 2017-18.

Besides the 77 unmanned crossings on the broad gauge, there are 1,135 on metre gauge and 1,178 on the narrow gauge lines. However, there is no such plan for the narrow gauge routes as these are mostly in hilly areas and the speed is very low. The official said priority is given to busy tracks while the ones where only one or two trains pass in a day, will be taken up later.

Soon after taking charge, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal had held a meeting of top Railway officials on 7 September last year, especially on the safety issues. During the meeting, he had directed that all UMLCs should be eliminated in the next one year.

In the meeting, it was decided to adopt a multipronged strategy to eliminate the remaining UMLCs which would include manning, construction of railway under-bridges, diversions etc. It was also decided to share the progress of elimination work transparently online through a website to increase accountability and public monitoring.