The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Fill vacancies of loco pilots, railway urged

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 05, 2007
ePaper

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Fill vacancies of loco pilots, railway urged

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: The Government should quickly fill the 320 posts of loco pilot, assistant loco pilot and shunting loco pilot in the three divisions of the South Western Railway as these are crucial safety category of jobs, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP and Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Railways Basudeb Acharya said here on Wednesday.

Mr. Acharya was speaking at a seminar on the “effects of globalisation in railway safety”, organised by the All India Loco-Running Staff Association. The theme of the seminar was that the profit making railways was gradually privatising different sectors and the workforce had dropped from 15.88 lakh to 14.41 lakh employees.

In the three divisions of the South Western Railway, Hubli, Mysore and Bangalore, there were 320 vacancies in the safety categories of jobs, and this was a major cause of concern, along with the fact that the engines, wagons and coaches, the railway lines and bridges were overused, and this could have dangerous consequences, Mr. Acharya said.

The association has complained that loco pilots and assistant loco pilots were made to work in inhuman conditions. Ergonomic principles are not followed in building the drivers cabin , and in some locomotives plain wooden planks server as cab seats, and the speed, working hours and distances have increased. Increasingly, the loco staff was complaining of back aches and other health problems.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka