Chennai Metro Rail Limited staff stop stir after talks with Government

Chennai: Employees of Chennai Metro Rail Limited, who were staging protest for the past three days, have withdrawn their agitation following talks with the State Labour Department and CMRL on Wednesday. During the tripartite talks, the CMRL agreed to solve the grievances of striking employees amicably.

Just minutes before starting the crucial second round of talks in the evening with the striking employees, CMRL has suspended three workers accusing them of sabotaging the signalling system of the train network on April 29. However the staff union denied the charge.

Disclosing the reason for suspending the employees CMRL stated that "It has been found that the below mentioned three Non Executive Staff who were controlling the entire train movement of both Corridor - 1 & 2 had deserted the work place on 29-04-2019 and halted the trains by giving false critical command in the signalling system to disturb/hamper the Metro train services intentionally," read the post. Based on this, the company has placed two traffic controllers - R Manokaran and K Prem Kumar and a depot controller Cynthia Roshan Samson on suspension.

Even as 250 employees were on a sit-in strike inside the CMRL's office in Koyambedu demanding the CMRL to consider their demand including wage revision, a section Metro service was halted on Monday due to 'technical glitches'. The services were suspended due to sabotage, which made the automatic signalling system to malfunction late on Monday evening. However, Soundararajan, the President of the CMRL Employees Union and CITU denied the charges. On Tuesday, theemployees held talks with State Labour Department and CMRL. On Wednesday, CMRL held second round of talks with employees and State Labour Department official. After the CMRL agreed to consider the plea of employees and solve them amicably.