Indian Railways (IR) will adopt Japanese best practice in rail safety under a Memorandum of Cooperation signed by the two countries. Following a spate of derailments and other accidents, India’s railways minister Mr Suresh Prabhu announced plans last month to seek the assistance of overseas railways as part of IR’s drive to improve operational safety through technological upgrades. Earlier this month, IR signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Italian State Railways (FS) and a similar agreement with Korean national train operator Korail is also being negotiated.

The pact with Japan includes a cooperation programme in the areas of rail welding, rail inspection, track circuits and automatic inspection technology. A paucity of funding has led to the deferral of safety-critical works, including maintenance of track and structures. A 2015 IR white paper concedes the backlog in the track renewal programme had reached 4500km. In his budget speech this year, finance minister Mr Arun Jaitley announced the formation of the Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh (Rail Safety Fund) with a budget of Rs 1 trillion ($US 16.1bn) over a five-year period.