Railways’ Union – the All India Railwaymen Federation (AIRF) — has approached the Railway Board Chairman and CEO – protesting against Railway Board’s move to ask Zonal Railways to surrender posts without prior discussion with the Union.
Pointing out that a large number of retirements are slated for this year and next, which would further deplete the staff strength, AIRF has called for appointment of permanent staff instead of hiring contractual staff as the reliability of the latter is questionable.
“The concept of appointing staff on contract basis should be done away with as it is a long process and their reliability cannot be vouched for,” said AIRF, adding that a lot of contractual staff including doctors, nurses, paramedical staff, did not turn up during the pandemic.
“The Railway Employees are the ones who have been performing these duties in addition to their normal duties. Further, several new activities have emerged during the pandemic in almost all the departments, and posts need to be created for the same.
“Pondering over surrender of posts at this time is inhuman and has been causing much displeasure among the employees,” said Shiva Gopal Mishra, General Secretary, AIRF, said in his letter to Suneet Sharma, CRB and CEO, Railway Board. He added that contracts of several ex-servicemen were not renewed.
Safety category
Railway Board’s Efficiency and Research Directorate asked various Zonal Railways to surrender posts as technological advancements in various fields of railway working have made several existing posts obsolete. AIRF added that the concept of safety category posts and non-safety category posts has changed during the pandemic situation for all categories of employees….right from an office peon to running staff, all can be classified as belonging to the safety category.
Each of the employees puts his own life at risk, and some even lost their lives in the line of duty during the pandemic. The CRB and CEO himself has acknowledged ….that, thousands of employees (from all categories) have been affected during the pandemic, and more than 2,000 have laid down their lives. Thus, terming only certain groups as belonging to safety category cannot be accepted in the present situation.
Questioning safety
Taking a quid pro quo stance, Mishra said, “If by the term safety category, the Railway Board refers to only employees who are involved in safe running of trains and thus ensuring safety of the passengers, we need to question the Board regarding safety of the employees. We do accept the adage that “Customer is King”, but then what about the employees? Only an administration, which ensures safety of its employees can expect them to work towards ensuring the safety of the customers.”
Permanent staff
Reiterating its earlier stance to employ only permanent staff, AIRF has said that “Most of the doctors, nurses, paramedical staff and hospital assistants, recruited on contract basis during the pandemic, failed to join duty, adding to the workload of the existing regular employees at a crucial period.
“Hence, all the vacancies should be filled up on a permanent basis. It also needs to be mentioned that, none of the contract labourers, who were entrusted with outsourced activities, turned up during the pandemic, due to obvious reasons, leaving Railways in the lurch.”