They toil for hours to pick up the luggage of train passengers at the Railway stations in return of a few bucks. Attired in red uniform, these people known as ‘coolies’ or licensed porters are always eager to carry heavy loads at the railway stations. Although they bear the burden of the nation’s train passengers on their shoulders, they are exploited to the fullest. Their life is certainly not as melodramatic and colourful as Bollywood movies which we believe. Most of them survive either on flattery or by greasing a few palms.
The porters, typical of train stations, are underpaid and over-worked lot. life is speedy at a train station and porters are often the forgotten means to our ends. The Bilaspur Railway Station alone has about 170 licensed porters. According to Railway sources, about 70 porters were recruited a few years back. The coolies get a free second-class Railway pass and PTO (Privilege Ticket Order) for self and three sets of uniform annually.
They also get free medical treatment at Out Patient Departments (OPD) of Railway dispensaries. In a dark, dingy hall outside the station premises called the ‘Coolie Shelter’, the porters can rest when not many trains are operating. The recruitment of coolies in Railways basically runs on the system of badge transfer.
According to Railway Board policy, the porters who consider themselves not longer fit to work, can surrender their badges by transferring it to a relation of their nomination, be it his son, daughter, brother, sister, nephew or brother and sister-in-law. Railways have fixed official rate for coolies’ services but this, however, is the neat, normative side of the story. The revision of rates for coolies’ services is running seven years behind schedule. The Railways treat coolies like third-rate workers.
“Obviously, we want greater rights for the coolies. We want class four-worker status from the Indian Railway. The charges must be revised and they should be allowed to work on loading and unloading of the Railway parcels which are done by permanent Railway staff,” informed a coolie in Bilaspur Railway station on condition of anonymity.
Doing away with the system of coolies’ altogether is hardly a viable alternative. The network provides employment to lakhs and is robustly thriving on passenger demand. But unless their employer, the Indian Railways, takes measures to foster credibility between the coolies, passengers and the Railway network, coolies in the stations will remain just one among the many sections of workers whose livelihood is a silent struggle. For, unlike their flamboyant Bollywood counterparts, licensed porters in Railways can hardly be expected to leap out of their anonymous lives of fractured dignity.