Part 1
Report by Kamgar Ekta Committee (KEC) correspondent
The All India Forum Against Privatisation (AIFAP) had organised an online meeting on Sunday, July 20, 2025 on the topic, “Oppose the contractualisation of work in safety category of Indian Railways and immediately recruit required additional manpower in each department!” The meeting received an overwhelming response from railway workers and people at large from all over the country.
The invited speakers were: Shri Akhilesh Pandey, President, Indian Railway Employees Federation (IREF), Shri Aloke Chandra Prakash, General Secretary, Indian Railway Signal and Telecommunication Maintainers Union (IRSTMU), Shri Ashok Kumar, Joint Secretary, Kamgar Ekta, Committee (KEC), Shri L. Bhoopathi, President, All India Train Controllers Association (AITCA), Shri D. Biswas, General Secretary, All India Guards Council (AIGC), Shri S.C. Purohit, Secretary General, All India Station Masters Association (AISMA), Shri Amzad Baig, President, All India Pointsmen Association (AIPMA) and Shri Chand Mohammad, national leader of Track Maintainers.
After welcoming all the speakers and other participants, Dr. A. Mathew, Secretary, KEC, pointed out in his opening address that over the years, the number of trains has multiplied, as have the number of tracks and routes. The complexity of train operations has also increased. There are several high density corridors like the Golden Quadrilateral. In view of this, we need more trained workers in the safety category of the IR (Indian Railways). However, the government has decreed that the sanctioned posts should be surrendered or cut by 2% every year!! In April 2024 there was an order to surrender 30,000 posts, which actually amounts to even more than this, at 2.5%.
In 2013 the Finance Ministry, Government of India had issued an order that the creation of new posts should be suspended. Only the categories that launched struggles against this, like the loco pilots and station masters were able to get new posts sanctioned.
These policies have created a severe shortage of staff amounting to 2.5 lakhs to 3 lakh workers in safety category currently.
Excessive staff shortage has meant that the workers who are there are always overworked and stressed. They are forced to bypass Standard Safety Protocols. All this adversely affects the safety of rail operations and endangers lives of both passengers and rail workers.
In May 2025, an order was issued to the General Managers of 4 railway zones – the ECoR, NFR, SWR and WR and to choose one division in each of their zones and 15 major stations in each of these divisions to employ contract workers in the S & T department for a period of 2 years each. These were supposed to take on all the work – including maintenance, breakdown and night time work.
Dr. Mathew stressed that if we all do not unite and oppose this, soon enough other divisions will also be similarly attacked. This meeting is one step in the direction of building this unity.
After the invited speeches there were a number of interventions by office bearers from various organisations, including Shri Navin Kumar, President of IRSTMU, Shri Pranav Kumar, President, Mumbai Division, AIRTU, Ms. Trupti, Joint secretary, KEC and P.S. Sesodia, Vice President, URMU (NFIR).
The speeches and interventions were of a very high quality. Speakers highlighted how the working conditions have worsened due to large number of vacancies in their category. Due to multi-fold increase in traffic, there is actually a need to increase the number of sanctioned posts. Employees are being made to work way beyond their specified hours. They are not getting adequate rest. This has led to severe stress on existing employees which has affected their health, personal and social life. Such high level of workload and stress endangers lives of passengers and rail workers. Not enough attention is being paid to safety of rail employees like S&T and track maintainers leading to death of workers by run-overs.
Use of contract workers, who are not generally adequately trained, in safety category amounts to playing with lives of rail workers and passengers. This should never be done.
Contractualization and outsourcing are steps towards privatisation of the Indian Railways which is totally against the interests of rail passengers and employees.
Only united opposition can stop these dangerous moves of the rail administration of contractualization and outsourcing.
It was proposed that a jointly signed letter should be submitted to the Railway Board to demand
i) Withdrawal of the circular proposing employment of contract worker S&T;
ii) No contract worker and outsourcing should be allowed in any safety category;
iii) All existing vacancies should be immediately filled with permanent employees;
iv) Increase the sanctioned strength in each safety category in the light of many-fold increase of traffic.
Other railway workers’ organizations should also be invited to join in signing the joint letter.
Speakers appreciated that AIFAP and Kamgar Ekta Committee took the lead to bring so many category representatives and federations together to discuss the problem and way out of it.
In the next part of the report, we will present key points made by various speakers.