What was written by the FROA to Board on TADK issue in the past

The DOPT, the Finance Ministry and any other authority concerned should be categorically told that a Railway Officer is a special official of the government and needs to be 24 hrs on duty

Read here, what the Federation of Railway Officer’s Associations (#FROA) had written to Railway Board on TADK issue in 2012. In that time Mr Shubhranshu was the Secretary General.

FUNDAMENTAL POINTS

The committee has been entrusted to examine whether cash can be given in lieu of TADK. Does the committee have any communication from the Ministry of Railways that such a cash allowance is admissible under the Government of India rules.

Has the committee asked the Railway Ministry whether the Railway Ministry itself has any such communication or sanction from the Finance Ministry or the #DOPT for admissibility in lieu of TADK.

If such a provision does not exist, will the committee’s recommendation have any effect other than withdrawal of TADKs and then no sanction of cash either?

THERE IS NO POST CALLED THE BUNGALOW PEON & TADK IS NOT RESIDENTIAL HELP

It must be pointed out to the concerned authorities in DOPT, Finance Ministry and all that there is no residential help provided to a Railway Officers in any guise whatsoever and that there is no post designated Bungalow Peon.

There are Telephone-Attendant – cum – Dak-Khallasis (TADK) provided to some officers in order to assist them purely in their official work, which is unique to the Railways. Some examples need to be given here to buttress this point:

A typical railway officer begins his day, often before sunrise, with a detailed review of the previous day’s performance, presented to him in the form of a “morning position”. In no other service such a requirement exists on a regular basis.

He has to call the control, the officers in the field, supervisors in the frontline and his colleagues for determining how to solve the residual problems of the previous day and to plan for the present day. Without this train operations will come to a grinding halt in a matter of days.

Please note that all this has to be done on Railway Telephone, DOT Telephone and now also the Mobile Telephone. This exercise has to be carried out right in the morning hours and may last well above two hours on a normal day. The TADK assists him in all this except in the use of mobile phones.

The TADK assists him in not only sorting out the papers, but also run to control office for delivering and fetching papers. He also has to run around to the houses of other officers and supervisors for this purpose. The errand duties of the TADK are so arduous that he is also provided with an official bicycle for this purpose.

The officer ends his day late in the night again taking stock of the situation for the day and issue directions for the night operations. Railway operations are round the clock and need to be monitored accordingly.

The TADK is an unavoidable help to the officer in this entire stretch of back – breaking work. That is the reason the TADK’s working hours are essentially intermittent, i.e. he is available for twelve hours during the day with the officer in the morning, in the afternoon and again in the evening with extended breaks in between.

The railway officer, however, continues his work without any rest.

As can be seen, the duties of a Railway Officer are extremely intensive and find no parallel anywhere else in the bureaucracy. The only equal is the duty-list of a Collector, who is rightfully provided with a full-fledged office at home along with staff and the other paraphernalia.

A Railway Officer, right from the Junior Scale to the Secretary’s level performs similar onerous functions, albeit of different levels of responsibilities.

A typical railway officer has to perform several duties in the night, which include inspections of stations, workshops, yards and trains.

He is required to travel on the footplate of a locomotive or on trolleys frequently as a specified assigned duty.

He has to walk several kilometers in yards, along railway lines, in workshops, in stores depots and on stations during inspection.

He needs an assistant to carry his papers, measuring instruments and implements.

He also needs someone by his side so that he can send for the concerned staff and supervisors during inspections.

Indeed, inspections are the cornerstone on which the edifice of Railways is built.

A Railway Officer is required to attend to accidents and mishaps including traffic disruptions caused by natural calamities and social unrests.

He often has to move at night and remain at site for days without a break, even foregoing sleep and rest.

A TADK needs to travel with him to attend to not only the officer’s needs, but to act as a messenger on the spot, carry his papers and implements etc.

Unlike the armed forces, where combat soldiers were doing domestic work for officers, the Railways do not employ field staff for performing duties of TADK.

The TADKs are specially appointed as substitute employees and get absorbed in regular posts after due screening.

To repeat, TADKs are not drawn from field, but are recruited against specially sanctioned pin-pointed posts.

In other words, use of TADK by officers does not deprive the field operations of manpower.

Besides, the Ministry of Railways has its own independent finance department, which at various levels has already concurred with the sanction of these posts of TADK.

There is, therefore, no need to approach the Finance Ministry for any sanction whatsoever.

To summarise:

The practice of engaging TADKs must continue if Indian Railways and indeed the Government of India want high levels of productivity from Railway Officers.

The assigning of TADKs should be done on the basis of an officer’s grade pay and eligibility.

The DOPT, the Finance Ministry and any other authority concerned should be categorically told that a Railway Officer is a special official of the government and needs to be on duty throughout the day.

He is actually on call 24 hours a day unlike any other official of the Government of India.

Such taxing duties are limited in other services and cadres to at best a few years in an officer’s career, like that in the tenure of a District Collector. And, the District Collector, for his tenure gets not only orderlies and telephone attendants at home, but a full-fledged office too.