Railways and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday asserted that the entire rail network would be free from "unmanned level crossing" by December. He said only three rail accidents took place due to unmanned level crossings in the last six months (April-October) as compared to 118 in 2013-14, barely three years ago.

Interacting with the audience at the 16th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit here, Goyal said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided to do away with all unmanned level crossings. From 2014-17, the railways eliminated about 1,100 unmanned level crossings every year. There were around 5,500 unmanned level crossings on the rail network across the country out of which, around 5,000 have been eliminated as of September 30. The remaining 474 would be eliminated by December.