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Rail gates on fast track: Express operations begin on Wednesday
View(s):A drive to recruit more than 1,000 people to operate make-shift railway gates was launched yesterday in view of the growing number of deaths at unprotected crossings. The men will be taken from the vigilance committees at village level and will be recruited after the necessary screening and interviews at the respective police divisions, Deputy Inspector General Amarasiri Senarathna said.
How many more deaths will it take till they know that too many people have died at unprotected level crossings? While the Traffic Police yesterday announced a crash programme to put up hundreds of rail gates throughout the country, the Sunday Times on Friday snapped this threewheeler carrying schoolchildren across an unprotected crossing near Cotta Road with a train perilously close. Pic by Nilan Maligaspe
He said the move came on a directive from President Mahinda Rajapaksa to Inspector General N. K. Illangakoon and funds for this purpose had already been allocated. The first such gates would come into operation from Wednesday in the Galle and Matara Districts where a large number of people were killed or injured in accidents at unprotected crossings in recent months.
The DIG who is in charge of traffic said the money for this purpose had been sent to the respective SSP divisions throughout the country where there are some 700 unprotected railway crossings.
The DIG said each gate would be manned by three workers who would be provided with an allowance and a certificate and they would be deployed on a shift basis. The entire task will be handled by a special committee comprising Police Chief Illangakoon, DIG. Senarathna and the Acting General Manager Railway Nalaka Bandara.
In the latest tragedy at an unprotected railway crossing, six women were killed and several injured, some seriously, when a Matara-bound express train packed with office workers rammed into a van carrying Poson pilgrims in Alutgama.
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