A suggestion to the Indian Railways

Happened to see the 'Nammal Thammil' program in Asianet yesterday. The discussion was about the recent train rape incident in Kerala (links below).

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/kerala-woman-in-train-rape-case-dies/747036/index.html
http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/kerala/article1161997.ece
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/134437/man-held-attack-woman-inside.html
http://karavalitimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3305&Itemid=1

The show ended saying that eventually Soumya's death would just be a personal loss to her family, which is sad but very true! We, along with our media, will soon forget this like any other tragedy, once we have a better topic to speculate about - we are so used to all these: a tragedy followed by lots of revelations ending up with no actions of any sort from any one!

Anyway, the show said that the railway employs two security forces for securing the trains and its passengers - The Railway Protection Force & the Government Railway Police Force. The truth is that both these groups are severly undermanned. You cannot blame these groups for not having security personnel in each & every train or platform in India. The Government (Centre & State) should ensure that they have sufficient personnel to secure the railways, there is no point in we accusing them of not securing the trains!

Now leaving that apart, a small suggestion nevertheless. Not sure whether this will help, but still: Till we have sufficient security personnel, can railways empower passengers to take care of themselves and one another. The railways should ask for volunteers interested in such a task, screen the interested parties' profiles, select the right people among them, and empower the selected few with the tasks of ensuring safety and helping passengers at times of need. They should be provided with badges which will also help other passengers know whom to approach in case they need some help. The selected volunteers should be clearly briefed on how and what they need to do in case of any emergency or a likely mishap. The whole idea is empowering a few people in every passenger train would ensure that there is always someone who knows what is the best thing to do in case of any such event, and this can also  ensure that the authorities are notified of such events as quickly as it can ever get, in turn ensuring timely & quick response from the railway security forces. The last point: the selected volunteers should be rewarded by the railways for their service to the community - maybe a fully paid vacation to anywhere in India by train for them and their family, say once every year would do!

Don't know why, but I just sent this as an email to the Railways as well; shall update the post if I ever get to hear from them regarding this.

Update (15-Feb-2010): Was surprised/ shocked to see such a prompt response from Railways (though not in the affirmative). Really glad that the email did get a reply! Response from Railways pasted below; will reply to this mail as well.