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| - Fact Check: Did Lalu Yadav's career as Rail Minister see zero accidents? No, here are the numbers
Around 1,000 rail accidents were reported between 2004 and 2009 when Yadav was the Railway Minister.
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India Today Fact Check
Around 1,000 rail accidents were reported between 2004 and 2009 when Yadav was the Railway Minister.
The railway board has recommended a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the train accident in Balasore, Odisha, which has left at least 275 dead. Amid calls for the resignation of Union Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw on social media, there were also many posts comparing the management and performance of the Indian Railways under different ministers and governments.
One person, extolling former Bihar Chief Minister and former Railway Minister of India Lalu Prasad Yadav's contributions, wrote, "There was a railway minister Lalu Yadav, as long as he was the railway minister there was not a single train accident, railways was beneficial for the poor, they used to run Garib Rath Express to travel in AC at low fare."
Yadav held the rail portfolio from 2004 to 2009 during the UPA-I regime. The archived version of the tweet can be seen here.
India Today, however, found that the viral tweet’s claim was false — the number of consequential accidents reported during Yadav's tenure as Railway Minister was much higher than in the last five years for which data was available.
Our Probe
According to the Ministry of Railways, 51 collisions, 550 derailments, 370 level-crossing accidents, 37 fire-related accidents, and 26 other miscellaneous accidents were reported between 2004 and 2009, bringing the total number of such accidents reported under Yadav's command to 1,034.
On the other hand, the total number of consequential accidents reported in the last five years for which data was available (from 2014-15 to 2018-19) was less than half of that — it stood at 478. The Railway Ministry classifies an accident as consequential when there is loss of life or injury or property damage or disruption to traffic.
Yadav, while presenting the Interim Railway Budget of 2009-2010 in the Lok Sabha, informed the house that the number of consequential accidents came down to 194 in 2007-2008 against 325 in 2003-2004.
In terms of casualties, 973 people died in the accidents when Yadav was at the helm of the ministry. In comparison, there were 1,080 deaths from 2014 to 2019.
Between 2014 and 2019, the Ministry was held by DV Sadananda Gowda (May 26, 2014, to November 9, 2014), Suresh Prabhu (November 9, 2014, to September 3, 2017), and Piyush Goyal (September 3, 2017, to July 7, 2021) respectively.
Incumbent Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw took charge of the Railway Ministry in September 2021. The data for consequential accidents under Vaishnaw's tenure has not been public yet. The latest data released by the Railway Ministry is only till September 2019.
Thus, the viral claim about Yadav's performance as the Railway Minister being unstained by any rail accident is patently false.
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