Railway employees dissect accident that killed three signal workers

Employees and unions of the Western Railway signalling department are calling for an end to attending to "unregistered complaints" without a scheduled block and for vacant positions to be filled. The employees claim that attending to unregistered complaints, which account for 70-75% of their work, puts a lot of pressure on them and compromises safety. There are currently over 250 vacant positions in Group D alone in Mumbai. This comes after three railway workers were killed by a train while conducting checks on an unregistered complaint.

STRAP: Stop practice of attending to complaints without scheduled block, say employees, unions

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MUMBAI: Two days after three of their colleagues were killed by a train while on duty, unions and employees of the Western Railway (WR) signalling department, after holding a condolence meet, had discussions on what could be done to improve the safety of their staff. Sources said there were two main issues that needed to be addressed: one, stopping the practice of attending to “unregistered complaints” and two, filling up vacancies, which have reached well over 40 percent.

Unregistered complaints are those where the staff is expected to take preventive measures to prevent a technical failure. “Over the years, we have been scanning signal poles, points on rail tracks and wirings as part of routine maintenance,” said a railway staffer. “It is during such checks that we come across issues that have the potential to become probable faults and affect the running of trains. We then move around the sites and inspect them without any official block or restrictions in the speed of trains. This has put a lot of pressure on staffers.”

Another rail staffer revealed that almost 70 to 75 percent of the department’s work was attending to unregistered complaints. “The rest of it is attending registered complaints when they affect train services,” he said. “This is when the details of the failures get documented from the minute they occur till they are rectified.” On an average, there are at least 40 to 50 complaints daily regarding tracks, signals, points, cabling and so on that are taken up across Mumbai.

Sources said that on January 22, the three workers who were hit by a train were conducting checks on Point number 103 as part of an unregistered complaint. “Point number 104 between Vasai and Naigaon was the one that had failed and had to be rectified,” said a railway union member. “The two points are interconnected, so there is a possibility that the men had gone to inspect Point 103.” Western Railway officials confirmed that there was no issue reported with this point.

At the meeting, the call to fill up vacancies was sounded again. In Mumbai itself, on Western Railway, the unions claim that there are over 250 posts vacant in Group D alone, and many more in other groups. The rail administration has given out some work on a contract basis but the rail staff is unhappy, as it is adding to the pressure on them. “Our staffers are called any time of the day and there are no fixed work hours,” said a member of the Indian Railways S&T Maintainers Union. “In the accident case too, the staff was home when they were called for emergency repair work. The railways should fill up pending vacancies.”