The East Coast Railway Engineers’ Association (ECoREA) has slammed the Railway Board’s recent order to discontinue recruitment of degree engineers as Senior Section Engineers (SSE) in the non-gazetted cadre.
“The Railway Board issued the order on Thursday. Besides stopping the recruitment, it has also stated that the decision will be reviewed after one year. This is severely condemned by the ECoREA,” said association president Bobin Mohanty on Tuesday.
He said the order violated the Joint Consultative Meeting decision to recruit degree engineers against 20 per cent of vacancy. The decision had been taken due to introduction of new technology and improvement of safety.
“Instead of increasing quality of technocrats, the Railways have discontinued the same after 34 years. Now, the Railway is pushed back by 34 years from electric engine to steam engine,” alleged Mohanty.
ECoREA general secretary Er Bishnu Prasad Dash said, “It is not a unfortunate that the Railway is thinking for modernisation and introduction of high speed bullet trains without young qualified degree engineers.”
He said the decision would create frustration among young degree engineers, who are dreaming to serve the biggest technical organisation of the country.
Finance secretary Er SB Satpathy lamented that the decision was taken in consultation with the National Federation of Indian Railwaymen (NFIR) and the All Indian Railwaymen’s Federation (AIRF) only and All India Railway Engineers Federation (AIREF) was not consulted.
Additional secretary Er IA Khan said that Railway has lost its outlook by neglecting qualified engineers.
Regarding safety, Mohanty said the Railway Board has also withdrawn the safety committee recommendations bowing down before the two labour federations, NFIR and AIRF. “It clearly indicates that Railway Board is administrated by both labour federations and never bothered on railway safety.”
Dash wanted to know justification behind re-engagement of overaged persons while young talented degree engineers are awaiting jobs. The vacant posts of officers can be fulfilled by promoting the engineers, he suggested.
Satpathy urged that if degree engineers are banned for recruitment as SSE through RRB, then Railway Board should also think to ban the recruitment through UPSC.
Mohanty further criticised the Board for taking leaders of labour federations into confidence even as they don’t have sufficient knowledge in the latest technologies.
“Not accepting recommendations of safety committees, discontinuing recruitment of degree engineers, re-engagement of retired officers, obeying the suggestions of labour federations without proper justifications etc. indicates the negligence of Railways towards passenger safety,” said Mohanty.
The ECoREA suggested that the Railways would be benefited in both safety and finance aspects if IAS officers are appointment at top managerial posts.
