Railway track maintenance work too goes to private hands

Aren’t we compromising with Safety by outsourcing the ‘most crucial’ job on Railways?-NFIR

Private workers should not be allowed to do crucial works involving the safety of train operations

Chennai: After privatising cleaning works, part of ticket selling, catering and bed-roll maintenance, the railway has now decided to outsource keymen and trackmen work for track maintenance as well.

A Railway Board directive to this effect issued to Southern Railway on Friday, 17th November said wherever patrolling of tracks is to be done in a pair and departmental manpower is inadequate, additional trackmen can be engaged through outsourcing.

The outsourced trackmen should be trained by a senior section engineer (SSE) of the respective permanent way department and competent certificate issued by the assistant divisional engineer, the directive said.

Railway sources said the decision came in the wake of repeated derailments and accidents in other railway zones six months ago. ‘Shortage of workers in permanent way department that maintains the track was cited as one of the primary reasons for the derailments.’

‘All the ‘A’ and ‘B’ grade tracks in the country have exceeded the 100 percent utilisation and such tracks had to be inspected on a daily basis for smooth passage of trains. The measure would bridge the gap in track maintenance,’ explained railway sources.

To monitor the trackmen and keymen, the Railway Board also directed Southern Railway to tag workers with Global Positioning System (GPS) during working hours. ‘The measure will ensure that workers are not engaged to do any domestic work in the houses of railway higher officials and also check those who work only for two hours a day,’ said a railway official.

In Southern Railway, keymen and trackmen are assigned to inspect about 6km of the track a day – each 3km distance for up and downline carrying about 26 kgs weighing tools such as beaters, crowbars and rake ballasts.

The trackman had to attend minor abnormalities at the track and initiate protection of tracks in the event of major defects. The worker has to plan to grease for all track fittings.

The total length of track in Southern Railway is 5,079km, spread over Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry and a few parts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

Southern Railway officials said vacancies in permanent way department was relatively less compared to other departments. ‘Even if a few numbers are outsourced, it will not affect railway workers,’ added an officer.

However, the railway workers union rued that the Railway Board decision would end the recruitment of keymen permanently in railways and jeopardise the entire railway machinery.

National Federation of Indian Railwaymen (NFIR) on his tweeter handle said, Aren’t we compromising with Safety by outsourcing and privatizing the ‘most crucial’ job on Indian Railways? God save passengers on Indian Railways if that happens.

SRMU Madurai Assistant Divisional Secretary M Ramkumar said any experienced railway keyman can assess the track strength and find the defects accurately within a few minutes after walking on the tracks. ‘He can also be held accountable in the event of derailments. What if the outsourced workers’ negligence leads to accidents?’ he asked.

He added that private workers should not be allowed to do crucial works involving the safety of train operations. This is against the assurance given by the Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha in a recent meeting in Delhi, he said.

Input Source: The New Indian Express