Railway engineers stage dharna

Demanding a revision of the existing status in terms of pay package, designation and working conditions, the members of the All India Railway Engineers Federation (AIREF), South Central Railway Engineers Association (SCREA) organised Ashantosh dharna and hunger strike in front of the Rail Nilayam in Secunderabad on Wednesday.

Railway engineers from all departments of the SCR zone participated in this mass protest and expressed their dissatisfaction over the Group ‘C’ status conferred to them by the Indian Railways. This was a response to the nationwide protest movement. Engineers Rajkumar Jakkula and Gattu Kumaraswamy, President and Secretary said about 500 engineers from different stream sat in the strike to protest against the policies towards its Junior and Senior Section Engineers, round-the-clock-work and safe movement of trains without any specific compensation or allowances.

They also stated that the concerned authority has shown negligence towards these engineers as the revised 7th Pay Commission has brought no hope. In addition, they demanded to confer gazetted rank to these engineers and asked for a revision of salaries and allowances as per the report of the Central Labour Commissioner.