The Railway Board has assured the Railways Union that it will take a re-look at its decision to freeze posts in the non-safety category, which includes ticket booking and other officials. It has also decided to have more meetings with the railway union to review its call on letting private operators run trains. This was told to BusinessLine by Shiva Gopal Mishra, Secretary General, All India Railwaymen Federation (AIRF) after a meeting with Railway Board officials on Thursday.

These were part of several points discussed between AIRF and Railway Ministry officials.

AIRF had asked the Railway Ministry to stop the steps that are leading towards lowering creation of government jobs, and privatisation of railway services.

AIRF General Secretary Shiva Gopal Mishra met Railway Board Chairman Vinod Kumar Yadav on Wednesday to register the Union’s strong objection against several moves of Indian Railways including a freeze on hiring and handing over running of a bunch of passenger trains to private operators.

Indian Railways, facing revenue pressure, had recently asked all zones and production units to freeze hiring and surrender half of all posts, except those in safety category. “The Railway Board’s orders to review posts created during last two years and surrender half of the posts on which recruitment has not been done is totally uncalled for. Further, Railway Board and Government of India’s proposal to privatise 109 routes is nothing but privatisation of a big chunk of railways,” stated AIRF.

In this context, AIRF had asked the Railways to take steps to cancel the proposal to privatise 109 routes and cancel the letter to surrender half of posts in non-safety category, which could not be filled up as the recruitment process is stalled due to pandemic.

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