Modernization coupled with Covid weigh down on railway porters

Coimbatore: When the Kovai Express arrived on Thursday afternoon at the Coimbatore Junction, there were hardly three porters at the rear entrance of the station.
From noon, none of them have had any work, and so planned to leave home after 4pm. Around seven years ago, there were 87 licensed luggage porters at the Coimbatore Junction. However, as suitcase with trolleys became fashionable and the station added more facilities like granite tiled platforms, escalators and battery cars, porter service in Coimbatore as a profession is dying. For people who visited the Coimbatore Junction a little more than a decade back, the sight of porters sporting dark red shirts with khaki trousers or lungis canvassing passengers at the entrance to the station or at the entrance of trains which had just reached, was synonymous with train travel. However, the last few years have seen their population in the station dwindle. “Ten years back, we were 87 of us licensed porters,” said 67-year-oldMani, who has been a porter at the station for the last 40 years. Porters began seeing the initial drop in business, when travellers began using luggage trolleys, suitcases and luggage bags.
“Then as part of station improvement, authorities slowly introduced granite tiles on the platforms making it easy for suitcases with wheels to be dragged, escalators and elevators so people don’t need to climb stairs and battery cars to move old people with luggage, which eventually removed our relevance and requirement in the station,” he added.
In 2014, after repeated complaints from porters that their livelihood was getting affected due to modernization, the railways had absorbed around 40 of the 87 people, who were young and fit to be gangmen and trackmen.
“We earned around Rs 600 a day pre-Covid times. Now, the number of trains running is less. Passengers have begun bringing minimal luggage and want to avoid others touching their luggage unnecessarily. We get hardly one or two clients a day and mainly to carry gunny bags and sacks and not luggage,” said54-year-old T Rajan, a porter of 20 years who joined the trade following his father’s footsteps.
“Now we hardly make Rs 200 a day,” he added. The porters now hope that the railways come up with some role for them where they can receive a fixed salary until they remain fit.
“We now go back home with our meagre earnings and are living off some savings and our wife and children’s earnings,” another porter said.