Track maintainers’ stage protests in Telangana, AP against Centre’s anti-labour policies
Hyderabad: South Central Railway Mazdoor Union affiliated to All India Railway Federation staged demonstrations before Divisional Railway Office in Secunderabad, Nanded, Vijayawada, Guntur and Guntakal on Friday against anti-labour attitude of the Central government and for failing to redress the just reasonable demands of the track maintenance category.
Thousands of Track Maintainers (TM), who are also called gangmen took part in the demonstrations in support of their demands. The demonstrations were organized under the leadership of union general secretary Ch Sankara Rao.
Rao said thousands of TM vacancies were not being filled in Indian railways resulting in heavy workload on them. Non-creation of additional posts of trackmen for double line, triple line, non-reduction of workload of track maintainers and age-old practices of the British regime are still followed by railways for manpower creation.
He said the workload of keymen was not reduced in spite of several representations and the trackmen were demanding six hour duty in two shifts. The same was not considered. The trackmen were recruited in Level-1 (Group-D) category in spite of having higher educational qualifications such as graduation and are failing to get promotions in Indian railways due to short-sighted policies of not providing Rs.4,200, Rs.4,600 and Rs.4,800 grade pay to the trackmen category.
According to Rao, a large number of vacancies are lying vacant in non-safety categories like Train Managers, Ticket Collectors, Commercial Clerks, ECRCs, Office Clerks and are not filled by promoting the Track Maintainers by allowing them to compete in the LDCE.
An immediate action needs to be taken to provide 10 per cent extra in LDCE open for all track maintainers and the risk allowance provided for track maintainers is less as daily there are run over cases and there is no safety for them during the night time.
The demand for provision of two track maintainers in the night patrolling is not considered stating that there is no sufficient staff due to the large number of vacancies. Thereby a single trackman is forced to work daily in the night time. There is an immediate need to provide two track maintainers in view of law and order situation and also in view of the safety of them.
The Railway Minister's lip sympathy for track maintainers without acting accepting the above demands is not justified. All the recruitments of Level-I (Group-D) should be in the track maintainers’ category and after a period of three years they should be sent to other departments in view of the physical and manual work involved in the trackmen duties.
