Loco pilots, guards stage dharna in Katihar

KATIHAR: Loco pilots, assistant loco pilots and guards of the Katihar division under the North East Frontier Railway have been staging an indefinite sit-in dharna under the aegis of the National Joint Council of Action (NJCA) since Wednesday.
Some of the demands of the protesters, who are sitting on dharna on the premises of the office of the divisional railway manager, include allotment of railway quarters according to the pay scale of employees, renovation of the quarters, roads and drainage system in the Katihar railway colony, construction of septic tanks and boundary walls as well as provision of better facilities in the railway hospital.
An NJCA office-bearer, Rupesh Kumar, told this newspaper on Thursday that several railway quarters had toilets without doors, leaking roofs, broken taps and overflowing septic tanks which “need to be repaired”.
Additional divisional railway manager Vijay Kumar Choudhary assured that the matter would be resolved soon. “But only genuine demands will be taken into consideration,” he added.