Report by Kamgar Ekta Committee (KEC) correspondent
The Indian Railways (IR) has awarded a 5-year contract for maintenance of 250 high-powered WAG-12B electric locomotives to Madhepura Electric Locomotive Pvt Ltd (MELPL). The contract covers the comprehensive maintenance of WAG-12B electric locomotives at the Nagpur depot of the MELPL. The contract is worth Euro 107 million (Rs 1,150 crore).
The 12,000 HP WAG-12B locomotives are also supplied by the MELPL. They are used for goods trains to transport 6,000-tonne loads at speeds of up to 120 kph on dedicated freight corridors.
MELP is a joint venture between French multinational Alstom SA and the Indian Railways, with Alstom having 74% shareholding and Indian Railways the balance. The Madhepura plant of MELP in Bihar has annual capacity of 120 locomotives. MELPL has set up maintenance depots at Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, Nagpur in Maharashtra and Sabarmati in Gujarat.
Maintenance of locomotives was till now carried out in the Indian Railways’ workshops by railway workers. These workshops are now being closed or handed over to private companies, thus rendering railway workers surplus.
The same approach of privatizing the maintenance is proposed for passenger trains. It is learnt that the tender for procurement of airconditioned suburban trains for Mumbai envisages the selected manufacturer setting up two dedicated maintenance workshops – at Bhivpuri on Central Railway and Vangaon on Western Railway. The supplier will also have the responsibility for maintaining the fleet over the operational life of train up to 35 years.
Privatization of the IR has been going on step by step in various ways for the last few decades, while governments continue to claim that the Indian Railways will never be privatized. Lot of activities which were hitherto carried out by rail workers are outsourced or have been corporatized and separated.
As in other critical sectors like power, only unity of workers, irrespective of their union affiliations, can put a brake to the privatization agenda of big Indian and foreign corporates.