Unions hopeful demands for staff welfare, rail safety to be accepted and announced in Union Budget

New Delhi, Jan 30 (PTI) Days ahead of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presenting the Union Budget, two railway federations have expressed optimism about their demands regarding new post creations, filling vacancies, and distribution of Rakshak devices being accepted.

The National Federation of Indian Railwaymen (NFIR) and the All India Railwaymen's Federation (AIRF) addressed their proposals to Sitharaman, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw earlier this month.

They urged the government to consider issues such as the removal of a ban on creation of new posts against new assets in the Railways and capacity augmentation, restoration of the old pension scheme, upgrade of medical facilities for specialised treatment, and provision of risk and hardship allowance for signal staff, among others.

"We are hopeful that the majority of our demands and proposals will be accepted and announced in the forthcoming Union Budget. These are crucial issues which need to be addressed urgently in the interest of railway employees as well as safe rail operations," said NFIR general secretary M Raghavaiah.

Shiv Gopal Mishra, the AIRF general secretary, said, "We have genuine expectations that our major issues concerning railway employees will be taken care of in the budget." The AIRF has raised demands such as implementation of Kavach across the rail network, upgrade of passenger amenities at stations, increase in per-capita contribution in the Staff Benefit Fund and filling vacancies in the safety category, among others.

"Your good self is well aware that there are more than one lakh vacancies in Level 1 in safety categories and, accordingly, general managers of the Indian Railways had placed their indents for approval of the Railway Board," Mishra said in a letter dated January 10 to Vaishnaw.

"It is quite unfortunate that the Railway Board has drastically reduced the number to 32,000, which is totally insufficient and the vacancies in such a large number will endanger railway safety," he added.

Training facilities for staff need to be augmented, Mishra said.

He suggested having institutes fully equipped to meet the changing technology and keep pace with future researches and transformations.

The NFIR prioritised issues such as restoration of the old pension scheme, payment of frozen dearness allowance and dearness relief of central government employees (serving and retired), ex-gratia payment to families of Covid victims in the Railways, and tax exemption for transport allowance, among others.

"NFIR reiterates its request for early payment of frozen dearness allowance and dearness relief to central government employees and pensioners, respectively, for the period January 2020 to June 2021," Raghavaiah said in a January 10 letter to Modi.

He also demanded an expedited decision for payment of ex-gratia to the families of those rail employees who died while performing their duties during the Covid pandemic.

Raising another demand, he said, "The amount of fixed medical allowance be reviewed and revised to not less than Rs 5,000 per month. Transport allowance paid to central government employees should be exempt from the purview of Income Tax." Other unions such as the Indian Railway S&T Maintainers' Union and the All India Railway Trackmaintainers' Union have also raised issues of staff welfare.

Chand Mohammed, working president of the All India Railway Trackmaintainers' Union, reiterated the union's demand for allocation of funds for distribution of Rakshak devices to save hundreds of track maintainers run over by trains every year.

Rakshak is a GPS-enabled instrument to alert track maintainers about approaching trains.

Indian Railway S&T Maintainers' Union general secretary Alok Chandra Prakash highlighted the union's demand for risk and hardship allowance for signal maintainers, pending with the finance ministry for several months. PTI JP JP SZM SZM

Source: PTI