Signal staff shortage: An issue of grave concern

KOCHI: While Railway employees claim that there is a shortage of staff to maintain the signalling system in the Thiruvananthapuram Division, it is matter of serious concern that the staff crunch would become a death trap for the train passengers.A technician who works with the division said: “There are days when we are forced to work for more than 15 hours continuously without rest because there would be nobody to relieve us while we are on duty. Sometimes, we feel so tired but we know that there is a huge responsibility on us as members of the Indian Railways.”The main reason for this is the shortage of workers needed for the maintenance unit of the signalling system, in the Thiruvananthapuram division, which alone is above a hundred.“Sometimes our junior engineers and technicians are forced to work 18 to 20 hours continuously because there is nobody to relieve them of the duty. Some days, when there is no work it is fine. But on days when there is a serious technical emergency like when the signal system becomes faulty or a fault occurs in the gauge system, the overburden on the staff can prove dangerous for the passengers who use the trains,” said Senior Signalling and Technical Engineer in Ernakulam Junction railway station.The staff complain that this mainly occurs as the Railways have not yet implemented the norms which were formulated in 2010 by which it was supposed to depute more number of technicians and junior engineers.Another railway employee said: “In the Alappuzha section, most of the time, we are forced to deploy people from other stations for the work. This is extremely dangerous, because by the time the maintenance staff arrive to fix the signals, there are chances of train drivers missing the signal.”Railway sources say that recently, the Palakkad Division has been set as the general benchmark in terms of division of labour and technology. But the authorities themselves know that it is not the right benchmark.“Employing less workers for more work” which has been followed by the signalling department of the Palakkad Division is completely impractical because this has only resulted in overburdening the employees,” sources said.