Bhubaneswar, April 7: Railway Engineers of East Coast Railway Wednesday staged a protest bike rally from Carriage Repair Workshop at Mancheswar to Rail Sadan in Chandrasekharpur to potest the report submitted by the seventh pay panel.
The protest was organized under the banner of All India Railway Engineers Federation (AIREF).
“The zonal railway engineers associations staged demonstrations all over the country on January 20 to protest the pay commission report. After that, the demands were raised in current parliament session by 8 hon’ble MPs irrespective of political parties. But it is understood that no significant action has been taken in favor of railway engineers. Hence, All India Railway Engineers Federation decided to stage demonstration again all over the country to show their frustration today” said AIREF president Sanjib Kumar.
He said that the main objective of the agitation was to draw the attention of Railway Minister and Empowered Committee formed to review the report.
Railway Ministry launched semi-high speed Gatiman Express train from New Delhi to Agra yesterday and safe running certificate is to be issued by railway engineers daily. But unfortunately, Ministry could not understand the problems of these dedicated engineers till date, said Sanjib.
“The 7th central pay commission report was erroneous due to misguidance by Railway Board. Though commission was ready to upgrade engineers from Group-C to Group-B but Board advocated against it neglecting railway safety” said President of East Coast Railway Engineers Association (ECoREA) Bobbin Mohanty.
He rued that Railway Board pushed safety into danger by keeping railway engineers with their workmen in the lowest cadre Group-C to favor labour unions which has created tremendous frustration among engineers which would affect safe journey of millions of passengers in future.
