By IANS,
Chandigarh : With rising number of accidents at unmanned railway crossings in Punjab claiming scores of lives every year, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has written to Union Railways Minister Mamta Banerjee to convert all the unmanned crossings into manned ones.
Badal pointed out that there were 729 unmanned railway crossings across Punjab and precious human lives were being lost every year due to frequent accidents at these.
“There are 729 unmanned railway crossings in the state as per the record of the Ferozepur and Ambala divisions of Indian Railways. Of these, 386 unmanned railway crossings are on metalled link roads/plan roads and the remaining are on kutcha paths,” Badal said in his letter to the railways minister.
“There is huge public outcry regarding accidents on these sites and human rights organisations are also pressing for manning these un-manned level crossings,” added Badal.
Punjab’s Ferozepur district has the maximum number of 70 un-manned crossings followed by 54 in Jalandhar, 46 in Gurdaspur, 37 in Tarn Taran and 30 in Nawanshahr.
Six school-children lost their lives when their school van collided with a passenger train near Nurmahal town in Jalandhar district last month.