Railway Employee Union to protest against Centre's privatisation policies

Kolkata: Railway Employee Union is all set to take out a bike rally to protest against the central government's privatisation policies on Friday.

"As part of 'Jana Sampark Prochar Programme' campaign, Scooter /Motorcycle Rally/ Squad/ Human Rally will held in and around the Railway Colonies and Railway stations (Barasat, Barackpore, Sealdah and others) on September 18," said Dilip Dutta Chowdhury, president of Eastern Railway Men's Union (ERMU).

He reiterated that the 'Jana Sampark Prochar Programme' campaign started on September 14 and will end on September 20. The main objective of this campaign is to connect with students, youths, women and labour organizations who are against privatisation of Indian Railways.

ERMU has also formed a five-member committee to stop privatisation of trains.

"We are supporting the week-long 'Jana Sampark Prochar Programme' campaign'. The campaign consists of street corners in different places to make common mass aware about how privatisation of Indian Railways will affect the country's economy," said Tanmay Roy, division secretary of All India Loco Running Staff Association (AILRSA).

Indian Railways has decided to allow private passenger train operators to run 151 trains on 109 routes. It has set a timeline for trains run with the help of the private sector. The first set of private trains will arrive in 2023. It will have 12 trains. However, all 151 trains will be introduced by 2027.

While Indian Railways will freeze new posts creation except in the 'safety category', it will not affect the ongoing recruitment for filling vacant posts of technical and non-technical posts announced in 2018.

The process of recruiting 64,317 assistant loco pilots and technicians had already been completed. The Indian Railway had started dispatching appointment letters. However, recruitment exams for 35,208 non-technical posts will be conducted after normalisation of the situation following the Covid-19 crisis.