Safety glow on jumbo corridors

Jamshedpur: Several stret-ches of Chakradharpur railway division that are part of or close to migratory corridors of elephants will have watchtowers and solar lights to prevent fatal accidents.

Spokesperson for South Eastern Railway's Chakradharpur division Bhaskar said they would soon convene a meeting with the state forest authorities to chalk out details.

"We have identified some vulnerable points along Sini-Chakradharpur, Posaita-Manoharpur and Chaibasa-Barbil, and near Jharsuguda (in Odisha). Elephant deaths have recently taken place in Posaita and Jharsuguda. We plan to set up watchtowers and illuminate jumbo corridor intersections with solar lights to check animal casualties," he told this newspaper.

As many as 18 elephant deaths have been reported on tracks in Chakradharpur division alone in the past 12 years.

On April 16, a freight train hurtling down Bagdihi forest range in Jharsuguda on Jharkhand-Odisha border had barreled into a herd of elephants, killing a calf and three adults.

Experts said the train was traveling at 75 miles an hour (around 120kmph) in a protected stretch of forest. Concerned, the railway authorities quickly imposed a speed limit of 40kmph on all trains on the route.

A senior official at Garden Reach, the headquarters of South Eastern Railway (SER) in Calcutta, said it had also been made mandatory to blow long whistles while passing through vulnerable stretches.

"We have urged for better co-ordination with forest depa-rtment of respective states to pr-event elephant deaths on tra-cks," said Sanjay Ghosh, chief public relations officer, SER.




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