Letter by Indian Railways’ Signal and Telecommunication Maintainers Union to the Railway Minister
(English translation of Hindi letter)
Indian Railways’ S&T Maintainers’ Union
Sr. No.: IRSTMU/RH/MR/09/02
To,
Hon’ble Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw ji
Hon’ble Railway Minister
Ministry of Railways
Government of India, New Delhi
Subject: Regarding the various problems of signalling and telecommunication department employees
Reference: (i) PMOPG/D/2024/0040725 dated: 14.02.2024
(ii) E(MPP)2024/1/26 dated: 11.09.2024
Sir,
Representing employees of the signalling and telecommunication department, the Indian Railways’ S&T Maintainers’ Union wish to inform you that the working conditions of the employees of this department are getting worse, with an S&T employee being run over or facing an accident while on duty every day.
Therefore, we S&T employees want to present before you resolutions to some critical problems:
- Risk and Hardship Allowance should be given to S&T employees immediately: Via letter PMOPG/D/2024/0040725 dated 14.02.2024, we had appealed to India’s successful Prime Minister to provide risk and hardship allowance to S&T employees. After this petition, the office of the successful Prime Minister informed us in a notice dated 01.05.2024:
“A Committee was constituted in Ministry of Railways to examine the issue of inclusion of fresh categories within the ambit of Risk & Hardship Allowance. The Committee has submitted its report and a suitable proposal has been forwarded to Ministry of Finance. Reply from Ministry of Finance is awaited.”
However, Indian Railways’ S&T employees continue to be deprived of the risk and hardship allowance. Therefore, we request your hon’ble self to advise the Ministry of Finance to approve the allowance for S&T workers.
- The post of Member (S&T) should be reinstated.
- AM (Signal) should be transferred from RDSO back to Railway Board: On 01.07.2023, the Railway Board post of AM (Signal) was redesignated as Sp. DG (Signal) and transferred to the RDSO. Now, although the signalling department is most closely linked to safety, the post of AM (Signal) has been kept empty, overlooking safety concerns. We request you to immediately transfer AM (Signal) back to the Railway Board.
- All vacancies in S&T department should be filled immediately: The signalling and telecommunication department is critical from the perspective of safety. Even then, safety is ignored and posts in this department remain unfilled. We request you to immediately fill all S&T vacancies.
- New posts should be created for newly added gears without matching surrender: Considering the importance of the S&T department for safety, several new gears have been installed and many more are going to be installed. Therefore, we request you to create new posts for the increasing number of new gears without matching surrender.
- Duty roster and shift duty should be implemented in S&T department: Duty roster and shift duty should be implemented in S&T departments of all divisions of the Indian Railways.
Thank you.
With utmost respect,
Alok Chandra Prakash
General Secretary
Indian Railways S&T Maintainers’ Union