Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw today said that the train accidents in the country have come down by 90 per cent. He said, the number of train accidents between 2004 to 2014 was around 171 which has gone down drastically due to the various steps taken by the government.

Replying to supplementaries during Question Hour in Rajya Sabha, Mr Vaishnaw said, the government is working on the root cause of the accidents and taking systematic measures to deal with them. He said, India’s indigenous Automatic Train Protection, Kavach, has been designed to prevent train collisions.

Replying to the issue of train punctuality, Mr Vaishnaw said that around 25 thousand trains run daily and 80 per cent of punctuality of trains has been achieved, which is a significant milestone.