The East Coast Railway Engineers’ Association (ECoREA) organised a safety seminar titled “Averting Railway Accidents-Vision of Railway Engineers” on the occasion of its 7th annual general meeting held here on Sunday. Rajya Sabha MP Baisnab Charan Parida inaugurated the seminar. Association general secretary Er Bobin Mohanty and All India Railway Engineers Federation (AIREF) president Er Sanjib Kumar discussed various issues relating to railway engineers.
They placed a host of demands, including recognition to the AIREF, Group-B status to all railway engineers and higher grade pays, before chief guest Parida. Stating that the Railway can’t develop by ignoring engineers, who play a major role in maintaining safety of railways, the RS MP said he would raise their demands again in the coming session of the Parliament.
“The nature of job of an engineer is totally different from a labour. So engineers should be given separate platform,” Parida said. In the second session, an election was held to elect functionaries of the association for the coming two year period, 2015-17. Bobin Mohanty, Bishnu Prasad Dash and Sudhansu Bhusan Satpathy were unanimously elected as president, general secretary and finance secretary, respectively. More than 300 engineers from the East Coast Railway and other zones attended the seminar.