New Delhi, Dec 19 (PTI) A 31-year-old technician succumbed to his head injuries after a freight train hit him in the Jhansi rail division while he was rectifying a signal flaw on the track on Thursday morning.

The railway officials said that signal technician Giriraj Prasad failed to notice an approaching freight train while he was working on one of the three lines in the Babina rail yard in the Jhansi rail division.

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“The train hit him in the head and he suffered serious injuries. By the time he reached the hospital, he was declared dead. All safety precautions were taken in this case and there was no lapse on the part of the rail administration,” said Jhansi Railway Division Public Relations Officer Manoj Singh.

However, the signal maintainers' union has alleged that signal workers and technicians are reeling under work pressure due to shortage of staff leading to becoming victims of fatal accidents.

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“The information that I have gathered from the division suggests that Prasad attended the signal problem in the evening of Wednesday and he was again sent to attend the problem around 9 am on Thursday,” said Indian Railways Signal and Telecom Maintainers Union (IRSTMU) general secretary Alok Chandra Prakash.

“There is a shortage of around 25 per cent of signal maintainers in the Railways due to which the existing workforce has to overwork to compensate for the vacant posts. A signal technician is under extreme pressure to make things operational and under that pressure the staff fails to remain concerned about his own safety," he added.

Prakash claimed that no rail section in the country has staff available for special S&T work if needed.

“When train movements are almost simultaneous on multiple lines, a technician, under pressure to rectify the fault, fails to notice the approaching train on his track from its sounds. We have been also demanding supply of walkie-talkie to signal workers so that at least we can have a safety system to get voice alerts on time, but the rail administration is unable to fulfil our demand due to its inadequate supply,” he said.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)