The East Coast Railway Engineers Association (ECoREA) staged a dharna in front of General Manager office here and DRM offices at Khurda Road, Sambalpur and Waltair on Friday under the banner of All India Railway Engineers Federation (AIREF) over railway safety by the Railway Board.
They submitted a memorandum to the General Manager for Railway Minister and Chairman Railway Board. More than 250 engineers from headquarters and Mancheswar Workshop attended the demonstration at Bhubaneswar.
“Train accidents could be reduced if the recommendations of several safety committees would be implemented immediately. In year 1962, Justice Kunzru Committee recommended to debar railway engineers from labour unions for which they could discharge their duties efficiently and railway safety could be improved. The same recommendation was validated by several safety committees in different years i.e. Justice Wangchoo (1968), Sikri (1978) and Khanna (1998). Even this year in January, a Task Force on Safety repeated the same recommendation. But yet the Railway Board has not implemented this repeated recommendation for which railway accidents are on the rise,” said president of AIREF Sanjib Kumar.
ECoREA president Bobin Mohanty urged that though the Railway Board had started to implement recommendation of Task Force on Safety partially, but yet the target date has been postponed twice from March 31, 2017 to December 31. It indicates the seriousness of Railway Board towards safety. We strongly demand to implement it as soon as without postponing further considering the importance of safety of passengers.” General secretary of ECoREA BP Dash told that after 6th Pay Commission, all engineers of other Central Government departments were upgraded from group-C to group-B as per DOPT order but the Railway Board did not implement same. Even recently on December 8, the DOPT again repeatedly published same order after the 7th Pay Commission.
But if the Railway Board would not implement, then safety would deteriorate again because the staff working under engineers have been upgraded from group-D to group-C after the 6th Pay Commission where as railway engineers were kept with their staff without upgradation.
Without motivation of safety engineers, zero accident cannot be achieved, he said.
Mohanty told that a graduate engineer joins as Senior Section Engineer and retires in same post without a single assure promotion for which they have been demoralized. The staffers having no link with safety get regular promotions.
Dash demanded that though they work for 24 X 7 hours, they do not get weekly rest for which they are not able to discharge their duties satisfactorily. Hence specific weekly rest should be given as provided to other staff.
Sanjib Kumar urged for personal intervention of the Railway Minister and the Chairman Railway Board to debar the railway engineers and accord social status so that safety could be improved and accidents would be reduced.