Personnel in these posts are essential to make sure protected practice operations.
New Delhi:
Out of round 10 lakh sanctioned posts below the security class within the Indian Railways, greater than 1.5 lakh are vacant, the Railway Ministry has mentioned in response to an utility below the Proper to Info Act in March.
Officers, nevertheless, have mentioned the security of trains is of topmost precedence and the railways have made vital investments on this matter previously 10 years whereas additionally taking on many structural and systemic enhancements which have had a optimistic influence on protected operations.
Security class posts embody practice drivers, inspectors, crew controllers, loco instructors, practice controllers, observe maintainers, station masters, pointsmen, electrical sign maintainers and signalling supervisors amongst others.
Being straight concerned within the working of trains, personnel in these posts are essential to protected practice operations.
“The overall variety of sanctioned, on roll (working) and vacant posts in security class of Indian Railways, as obtainable on this workplace, as on 01.03.2024 (provisional) are: 10,00,941, 8,48,207 and 1,52,734 respectively,” the ministry mentioned in response to the RTI utility.
Responding to a query within the RTI utility about vacant posts of loco pilots (mail/specific/passenger/items/shunting), the Railway Ministry mentioned out of a complete sanctioned submit of 70,093, as many as 14,429 are vacant.
Chandra Shekhar Gaur, the RTI applicant based mostly in Madhya Pradesh, mentioned, “The response reveals the Railways additionally suffers because of the emptiness in submit of the assistant drivers. Out of the full sanctioned posts of 57,551 for assistant drivers, 4,337 are vacant.” Within the RTI utility, Gaur additionally sought to know what number of new posts have been created and what number of posts have been surrendered within the Indian Railways previously 4 years.
To this, the Railways replied, “It’s said that this data just isn’t centrally maintained on this workplace. It’s scattered. It pertains to a couple of Public Authority i.e. All Zonal Railways and Manufacturing Items and so on.” “The ministry suggested me that such data might be obtained from the general public authorities involved by submitting separate purposes to them below the RTI Act. I believe such essential data needs to be centrally maintained,” Gaur mentioned.
Railway commerce unions have raised the problem of rising stress on officers and employees within the security class resulting from a scarcity of personnel.
“That is the explanation why accidents are occurring. Staff within the security class are overstretched. They must work past their psychological and bodily power,” Ashok Sharma, the assistant common secretary of the Nationwide Federation of Indian Railwaymen, mentioned.
“The most important drawback is that the Railway Ministry has stopped the creation of all security class posts about two years in the past and now such posts can’t be created with out the concurrence of the Finance Ministry,” he claimed.
Nevertheless, a senior railway official mentioned funding in safety-related initiatives within the 2014-24 interval was 1,78,000 crore which was 2.5 instances the corresponding funding of 70,273 crore within the 2004-14 interval.
“The main focus is on additional enhancing security measures. Enhancements associated to tracks, signalling, locomotives and trains are a part of this endeavour,” he mentioned.
The official additionally mentioned coaching loco pilots, loco inspectors, and station masters are additionally of high precedence. “Simulators are being launched for higher coaching,” he added.
(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
