NEW DELHI: The All India Loco Running Staff Association’s South Zone president said Saturday loco drivers handed a memorandum to Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, blaming poor working conditions for recent train accidents.R Kumaresan, who played a crucial role in organising the interaction between the former Congress president and the loco pilots at the New Delhi railway station on Friday, told PTI that they wanted to bring to Gandhi’s attention “serious safety issues” faced by drivers and passengers in the Railways.”Recent accidents, including collisions in Indian Railways, apart from other issues, have brought forth the urgent necessity to resolve the working conditions of loco pilots since it is said that there is human failure,” the association said in the memorandum.Highlighting the plight of train drivers, the note said loco pilots, especially those who drive goods trains, work 14 to 16 hours a day and get to go home after three or four days.It said these drivers work for more than four consecutive nights and instead of getting weekly rest, they are given rest once in 10 days.The memorandum said a task force on safety appointed by the Railways in 2017 found that overshooting of red signals happens mostly when loco pilots return after “inadequate weekly rest”.”Since they (drivers) are denied leave to attend to their domestic work, they perform domestic work during rest periods and therefore, rest is insufficient for them,” it added.”Whereas all staff are entitled to a weekly rest between 40 and 64 hours but loco pilots are entitled to only 30,” the note said.According to Kumaresan, the Railways uses the term “periodic rest” instead of “weekly rest” in its rules under which loco pilots are entitled to 16 hours of rest at the headquarters.”The 16-hour headquarters rest is to get relieved from the duty strain. Complete real rest can be 30 consecutive hours after the expiry of 16 hours of headquarters rest,” the memorandum said.
Source link
