The All India Railwaymen’s Federation aka AIRF, promoting a majority of the railway workers in India, on Tuesday condemned Centre’s economic policies where rich are going richer and poor poorer. Addressing the opening session of the 86th national convention of AIRF at the Motibagh football ground, its vice-president Rakhaldas Gupta and general secretary Shivgopal Mishra also flayed railways management telling workload was rising but workforce was decreasing in the organisation.
The AIRF leaders, posting over 6,000 railway employees who had origin from 16 zones in India, told a decade ago railways had 16.50 lakh employees. Today, it was down to 13.50 lakhs. “This is despite the truth that in the last ten years, railways’ passenger earnings have went 107% and freight 97%. But the mass of employees has dwindled 12%,” Gupta stated.
He included that due to faulty policies, over 2 lakh posts were lying vacant around the Indian Railways. This was putting additional load on staff for whom even obtaining leave had turn to be hard. Applications for voluntary retirement aka VRS were being rejected and retired running staff was being reappointed, he told.