PROTEST AGAINST TYRANNY OF RAILWAY MANAGEMENT

PROTEST AGAINST TYRANNY OF RAILWAY MANAGEMENT:

               AILRSA South Western Railway is organising

GATE MEETING on 31.03.2015 in front of CREW BOOKING DEPOTS

In Solidarity with 636 Loco Pilots who were mercilessly removed from service throughout Indian Railways on account of SPAD in a span of 4 years by the Tyrant Railway Administration.

Signal passing at danger is an occupational hazard concerned to a Loco pilot. As there are occupational hazards connected with every kind of jobs in the world which do not attract capital punishment, earmarking capital punishment to Loco Running Staff alone for signal passing at danger is a grave injustice as nobody does it willfully.

When railway is expecting 100% perfection from a Loco Pilot, they willfully denies  sufficient rest, Periodic rest, Leave, limitation of duty hours &  night rest, better working condition & Pay package. Even though different committees have made many recommendations for improving the working condition and limiting working hours, railway management is reluctant to implement it.

Railway is blaming human failure as causes of accidents but refuse to investigate why humans fails despite the capital punishment. The investigation after every SPAD is so designed to find out 'who went wrong instead of what went wrong'. Why drivers pass signal at danger is never enquired, investigated or researched as done in foreign railways. In other railways there is no threat of losing job due to SPAD, which cause to induce him to admit that he passed the signal which in turn help the management to find out the real causes, reasons that led to SPAD and rectify it. The old concept of deterrent punishment will not serve the purpose. In spite of so many accidents Indian railways is unwilling to accept that inhuman rules of working conditions are causing human failure.

More than 600 Loco Pilots were removed from service on account of Signal Passing At Danger (SPAD) in last 4 years, in all over the Indian Railways. No Loco Pilot deliberately passes a stop signal at danger as it risks his life first and then his job. Fact Finding Enquiries are turned to be Fault Fixing Enquiries by Railways and innocent Loco Pilots are crucified if they are alive after accident.

Safety committees like  Railway Safety Review Committee 1998 headed by hon'ble justice H.R.Khanna, High Level Safety Review Committee headed by renowned scientist Dr.Anil Kakodkar and  High Power committee 2013 headed by D.P .Tripathi are formed to study about the occurrence of SPAD and measures to check it. These Committees have submitted their recommendations to Railways but these recommendations are still sleeping in those reports and never implemented so far. Biggest irony about the Minutes of SPAD meeting of Railway Officers on 12.06.12 is that it instructs Zonal Railways to implement those recommendations which is not yet done. 

In every SPAD cases railway is giving capital punishment in spite of it being an unintentional offence, but in a murder case which is an intentional offence only in the rarest of the rare cases capital punishment is given, so railway should do away capital punishment according to Railway Safety Review Committee report (1998) by Justice HR Khanna.

In recent past, there were 11 SPAD cases occurred in TVC division.  and all of them are out of service with removal from service or compulsory retirement.AS in a recent case Trivandrum division of southern railway an  ALP has  taken back to service with an entry  pay  and with an increment cut for a long period of 21 years  is too harsh and destroying  only the employee but also the poor family. Destined to suffer for whole life is something unheard of, and it shakes the consciences of many. 

Against this inhuman attitude of the administration AILRSA TVC Division is protesting by stopping all goods and passenger/express trains for five minutes from 08.00 hrs to 08.05 on 31.03.2015.

Bengaluru            WORKING CLASS UNITY ZINDABAD.

25.03.15