With Ministry of Railways unable to bear the financial burden of over Rs 32,000 crore in the wake of 7th Pay Commission recommendations, it may off load a part of its staff to existing and forthcoming Metro projects across various cities.
According to sources, the ministry is considering to adopt the recommendations of one-member committee constituted for delegation of commercial powers of railway projects to lower level of bureaucracy, which was headed by former Delhi Metro chief E Sreedharan.
In the report submitted by the Sreedharan panel to Rail Minister Suresh Prabhu, the committee had suggested rationalisation of railway employees on the issue to address the fund deficit.
Notably, a larger share of Railways revenue is being spent on paying salaries to its above 13 lakh working employees and about 15 lakh pensioners. The suggestions of the panel is very crucial as it would help Indian Railways to off load it’s salary burden, which would be shifted to employing Metro. “Given that railways employees are well trained in management of traffic, electrical, signalling, public grievances, etc, Metro rail service providing city could engage a bunch of railway staff as per their requirement and pay their remunerations ,” said a source in the ministry, referring the findings of the committee.
Adding further, the source said, “Nowadays Metro Rail services are becoming a part of every major city. The modern rail service facility which was started from the national Capital is being successfully adopted by state governments for cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Ahmadabad, Kochi, Lucknow to make it a part of public transport.” It’s also that Metro’s spending on staffing is also increasing and the proposed move is aimed at correcting the balance sheet of both the public carriers.
It’s worth mentioning that raising the prevailing financial position of Indian Railways, Prabhu in a letter to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had requested to help for implementation of the pay recommendations, which will put an extra burden of Rs 28,450 cr on Railway Budget.
Railways bear 35.6 per cent of the total pay and allowances of the government which is more than 1/3rd of the Pay Commission’s burden for serving staff and nearly 28 per cent of the pension impact of central government would be on the Railways.
However, the Railway Minister had expressed his reservation about increasing the freight rate in the given scenario contending that it would have a “deleterious impact” on the national economy.
“I would therefore earnestly request you to help the Ministry of Railways and handhold it for the implementation of 7th CPC recommendations,” the Railway Minister had said in the letter.