Report by Kamgar Ekta Committee correspondent based on inputs from Shri. Alok Chandra Prakash, General Secretary of IRSTMU
Employees of Indian Railways Signal and Telecommunications Department observed 24th June as “Demand Day” all over India, under the banner of their union, Indian Railway Signal and Telecom Maintainers Union (IRSTMU). They worked with black armbands and held meetings in all their locations.
Prior to this, IRSTMU leaders had submitted a charter of demand to the Indian Railways management. (See attached PDF for their main demands)
Besides the demands, the letter pointed out that S&T maintainers are one of the most neglected category of workers of the Indian Railways. They had many times agitated for their demands and pointed out that they had observed Black day four times earlier, on 27th September, 2016; 9th February, 2019; 9th February, 2022 and 14th March, 2024 but IR management did not resolve any of their long pending serious demands. Thus they have been forced to agitate on 24th June and the letter further warned that they will be forced to resort to “Tool Down” agitation on 5th November,2026 during their Peroid of Rest during Split duty Roster generally between 12:00 hrs to 14:00 hrs.
As a result of the united action of 24th June, the Indian Railway management called the leadership of IRSTMU for discussion. The management gave a promise that process of recruitment of 323 Technician Grade 1 personnel and 6242 Technician Grade 3 personnel in vacant positions has been started. Filling up of vacancies is one of their main demands. All categories of Indian Railways have huge vacancies and the Indian Railway management is moving at snail’s speed to fill up the vacancies. On that background, this is definitely a victory for S&T maintainers and their union IRSTMU.
This development also underscores another important fact – Just for 2 hours, that too during their rest period, if S&T Maintainers resort to “Tool Down”, the Indian Railways system would collapse! This is how important and critical work that S&T maintainers carry out. This is true about all operating categories of Indian Railways. The workers of those categories are indeed the backbone of the Indian Railways system, but are the most neglected and the most overworked and overstressed.
While describing the demands, the IRSTMU General Secretary Shri Alok Chandra Prakash and National President Shri Navin Kumar pointed out that in the last four to five years hundreds of S&T department employees have been killed in runovers or in accidents while on duty. Not only this, S&T staffs are called in without any duty roster or after their working hours whenever there is a signal failure, which violates the HOER, 2005 rules, compromising safety and security of Signal and Telecommunications Department employees as well as of train and passengers. Due to lack of proper rest and sleep, if they make any mistake then they face punitive actions like chargesheets, suspensions, and even, on occasion, dismissal from their jobs.
‘Night Duty Failure Rectification Gangs’ have not been established in spite of clear mandate from the Railway Board, and instead of that S&T staff are summoned back from their homes during their rest period to attend to failures. In the absence of a regular duty roster, S&T staff has to bear with irregular life style due to which many of them fall prey to dangerous ailments like high blood pressure, heart diseases, diabetes, cancer, etc.
The demands of S&T workers are absolutely just and deserves support of not only all the workers of Indian Railways but also the entire working people.
