During Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain’s visit here, seven delegates of the East Coast Railway Engineers’ Association comprising president Bobin Mohanty, general secretary BP Dash, SB Satpathy, IA Khan, Tejraj Deheri, KP Dash and SK Nanda met him and discussed on improvement of railway safety to reduce train accidents.
They urged the Minister for suo motu implementation of the recommendations of the Task Force on Safety because this report was submitted by high level railway officers who are involved with safety. They pointed out that as per the report, the engineers should be debarred to join labour unions. If it is implemented, the railway engineers would be free from unnecessary burdens and would be able to focus on safety sincerely.
Bobin Mohanty brought to the Minister’s notice that the report is based on recommendations of the Justice Khanna committee of 1998. He added that Justice Khanna mentioned that the same recommendations were given by different safety committees, i.e., Wanchoo, Sikri and Kunzru. Hence considering the importance of repeated recommendations it should be implemented at the earliest.
The delegates demanded that after debarring, their platform All India Railway Engineers’ Federation should be given recognition so that the members would be able to share their experiences with the administration for improvement of safety and economy of the Railways.
The association also submitted a 13-page memorandum with full justifications. The Minister assured that he would discuss further after going through the justifications.