To modify passenger sahayaks (coolies) interface and bridge the communication gap, Ranchi Railway Division is gearing up to conduct behaivoural cum skill development training for all the sahayaks at Ranchi, Hatia and Muri stations.
Recently, a communiqué from the Ministry of Railway, Government of India clearly mentioned that behavioural training must be imparted among the railway sahayaks to provide quality services to the commuters at stations.
All licensed railway sahayaks will soon be trained on soft skills and behaivoural approach by the railway officials. Giving a makeover to the existing system and committed to make facilities under Indian Railways more passenger friendly, the directives have been issued by the Railway Board few months back directing all railway divisions across the country to empower sahayaks with soft skills.
Railway officials here have planned to conduct the training in phase wise mode and will be initiated from October last week. Few years back Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu during his Budget speech have stated that all the sahayaks must be given soft skills training cum behavioral guidance to aid passengers.
Following the guidelines issued by the Railway Ministry, few railway divisions have already completed the training of sahayaks. In the first phase Ranchi railway division has also imparted training among few registered porters covering various behaivoural facets, said Senior DCM, Ranchi Railway Division, Neeraj Kumar.
“Front line staffs training have already been initiated by railway few years back. The training procedure is the need of an hour covering basic behaivoural approach. It will be a workshop cum training sessions for all the porters for three days and will be conducted at a regular gap for porters to maintain their tempo. According to the adapted training module, porters will be given training about basic mannerisms, co-ordination with passengers, to charge fees according to a fixed rate card on display at rail platforms including being responsible for passengers luggage security,” added Kumar.
Railway officers may also rope in few resource personnel or experts from different fields to train sahayaks in different genres as per the requirement and will be a continuous process to make them well versed with the system.
“It will be altogether a different experience for both passengers and sahayaks, especially tourists. A porter greeting passengers, charging fair fee and guiding tourists will be an overwhelming experience for all. Moreover, this initiative will inculcate a feeling of trust among the travelers for porters,” added Kumar.