Bardhaman Dot Com News Bureau
Andal, 17 Aug 04 :
Railway minister Laloo Prasad Yadav brought a consignment of 24 parcel wagon rake of 'Millennium Expresses' from Danapur, Bihar to Andal under Asansol division last midnight to examine alleged overloading. Till 4am today the railway minister himself supervised the two-and-half hours weighing sitting inside the control cabin here. The top bureaucrats of the Eastern Railway including the senior divisional officials had to witness the exercise forced by the railway officials. 

'Electronic In Motion Weigh Bridge' operating in possession of the E.Rly in this stretch. In 1994 and 1996 two units of such weighing machines were installed with the Andal station yard to help weighing of coal carrying wagons dispatched from different Eastern Coalfield collieries. The railway divisional officials said, 'the minister had weighed the parcel wagons in Danapur manually but he wanted accurate measurement and weighing. So he had to rush to Andal. Yadav later told the reporters, "we have identified that eight out of twenty four parcels of the Millennium Express were carrying goods beyond it's capacity. In aggregate 17 tons of excess load were identified during weighing here." He said, "I have come to know that another Millennium Express consignment flagged off from Howrah and destined for New Delhi. Let me reach Delhi tomorrow I shall have stern action against the persons concerned. I have got a special anti-biotic for the faulty officials out of whose offence the railway has to suffer such loss."

The railway minister also said, "such overloading is causing adverse effect to the railways in a number of ways. This injure the wheel springs and make the coaches more accident prone. Huge revenue loss from the railway exchequer of course is a very important point." "None will be spared I can rest assure," the minister stated. The Chief Commercial Manager of the Eastern Railway, who also arrived with the minister said, "today's raid discovered that the railway suffered a loss of revenue worth Rs. 42,5000 from this particular consignment." The railway minister added, "revenue worth crores of rupees are being pilfered or drained out due to this sort of suicidal acts." 

The minister meanwhile had to wait for about an hour idly as the Asansol railway officials were failing to bring the rake on the right track where the in motion weighing devices are equipped. The devices comprise auto censor track switches installed under the weighing rail. The rake was supposed to roll along the south arrival of the weighing platform could not be tracked as the train was sent to interior shunting due to ill communication with the signaling cabin. When it was about one hour that Yadav had to wait to see the Millennium Express on the weighing track, he expressed annoyance and asked the DRM, Kumar and other officials, "Kya ho raha hain? Itna der kyon?" (What's happening? Why so late?) The officials then communicated the driver and the control cabin to expedite the operation. 

It was 2.27am when the train rolled on the track. But it too failed to lend measurement to the in motion weighing machines. For three consecutive times the train had to roll to and fro to help the required measurement. The reason, the officials explained, "the machines can not reciprocate to the weighing system if the train rolls at a speed of more than 8kmph. When we communicated this to the driver through the Radio Transmitter set it could be successful at the third run." The railway minister took an exception to this lapse by the Asansol Railway Division.