Railway unions, a majority of whose members recently voted in favour of an indefinite strike from April 11 if their demands were not met, have termed the Rail Budget “very disappointing”.

In a statement, the National Federation of Indian Railwaymen (NFIR) said Suresh Prabhu’s second budget was a document “towards the journey for privatisation of Indian Railways in the name of transformation.”

“It is sad to note that the Railway Minister has not given due recognition to the dedicated services being rendered by various categories of employees who toil hard day and night,” said NFIR, adding that commitments given by previous Rail Ministers on free medical treatment to dependant parents, construction of new quarters under the corporate welfare plan drawn up years ago, had not been fulfilled.

Also, there was no move to fill up 2.5 lakh vacancies, out of which over 1.5 lakh vacancies belong to safety categories, it said.

Shiva Gopal Mishra, General Secretary, All India Railwaymen’s Federation, the largest union, while welcoming steps such as the introduction of Antoydaya Superfast Train for unreserved passengers and additional Deen Dayal Upadhyay coaches, said it had “no clear roadmap about regulating the income of the Railways and it appears that a lot of things have been left for corporates.”

L Mony, President, All India Loco Running Staff Association, said the availability of normal tickets will go down to around 40 per cent, as 30-40 per cent of tickets are sold through Tatkal, along with premium trains tickets for normal trains. Accusing the Budget of “projecting privatisation”, Mony said the Budget was also “silent about staff and safety”.

He added that though the Labour Ministry had ordered six-hour duty for loco running staff, the Centre was appealing against it in courts to extract work beyond 10 hours.

“As a result employees are over-worked, even without weekly rest and legitimate leave” he added.

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