The Hindu Business Line : Panel wants Rlys to fill up vacancies

Hyderabad, July 6 The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Railways has opposed privatisation in Railway activities and called for filling up vacancies and connecting those places yet to join the Railway network.

Speaking to newspersons on Friday, Mr Basudeb Acharia, Chairman of the panel, said that the catering system, which aims at providing passenger amenities, has of late become a commercial activity.

He also said that the players who were taking up outsourced jobs were resorting to retrenchment and underpayment.

Mr Acharia also took a serious view of the huge number of vacancies, including in the crucial safety and operational segments.

He added that the number of employees in the Railways came down by 1.52 lakh in just nine years.

Currently, the total strength is put at 14 lakh. In the safety segment alone, the number of vacancies is put at 85,000.

The targets for freight and passengers are increasing, but there are no efforts to increase the number of employees.

“In fact, it is decreasing, increasing the burden on existing staff and forcing them to work for longer hours.”

Drawing a parallel with the huge road development programme, Mr Acharia wondered why the Centre chose not to prepare a similar expansion programme for the Railways.

The committee also expressed concern over the unfavourable freight movement ratio with the surface carriers; while it was 70:30 in the 50s, it is now 30:70.

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