The East Coast Railway Engineers’ Association (ECoREA) on Thursday staged a demonstration in front of the ECoR headquarters building here to draw attention of the new Railway Minister to its several demands. later, five ECoREA delegates headed by general secretary Bobin Mohanty submitted a memorandum for the Railway Minister through the ECoR General Manager.
The engineers demanded to scratch the oldest labour Act of year 1926 as directed by the Prime Minister to abolish all old Acts. Due to this Act, degree and diploma engineers are clubbed with labour unions and the unions never represent them at proper level for which they have been downgraded compared to other staff, the memorandum said.
Even after 161 years of formation of the Indian Railways and 67 years of Independence, degree and diploma engineers working as junior engineers and senior section engineers, respectively, are considered as organised labourers. The memorandum said these two labour federations have recommended higher salaries than railway engineers to the 7th Central Pay Commission for non-technical and non-safety employees in spite of their lower recruitment qualifications, lesser duties with zero responsibility, no passenger safety issues and absolutely zero involvement with train movement.
The memorandum said the junior engineers of other departments of the Central Government have been given Group-B status as per an India Gazette notification of 2009, but junior engineers and senior section engineers of railways have been given Group-C status only, for which they have lost their social status. The memorandum argued that the engineers who dedicate everything they have to breathe life into the railway system are frustrated with humiliation made by the administration. Though they are the backbone of the railway system, they have been neglected since two decades.
The engineers also demanded that the pay anomalies made by the 6th Pay Commission be rectified at the earliest as the 7th Pay Commission would submit its report early next year. Railway engineers from the Visakhapatnam, Khurda Road and Sambalpur Divisions, Mancheswar Workshop and headquarters joined the agitation.