Indian Railways' financial situation may have entered a more difficult phase in the last few months than what was apparent publicly. If the claims of its largest employees federation are true, the Railways had started deferring payment of some allowances to its employees.
“The financial situation of the Railways is so bad that it is deferring travel allowances, night duty allowances and overtime payouts. We have raised this issue with the earlier Railway Minister, and Railway Board. We have also raised this with the new Minister,” said Mr Shiva Gopal Mishra, General Secretary, All India Railwaymen Federation (AIRF).
Mr Mishra claimed that though these payments are not under dispute, the bill for these deferred payments run into few hundred crore.
HIGHER BUDGETARY SUPPORT
The federation has demanded that the Government extend a budgetary support of Rs 15,000 crore to the Railways, to match the losses it makes in passenger operations annually.
After a protest march here on Wednesday, the federation submitted its demands to the Prime Ministers' Office and raised the issue with the Railway Minister.
The demands include filling up vacancies in 2.4 lakh posts, and higher payouts.
The five federations had earlier taken a position against the roll-back of passenger fare hike proposed by the earlier Railway Minister, Mr Dinesh Trivedi, and said that the roll-back should happen only if the Railways gets a matching grant from gross Budgetary support.
In the backdrop of this stand by the employees federation, the new Railway Minister, Mr Mukul Roy, went ahead and announced a roll-back causing an over Rs 5,000 crore potential loss to the Railways. There is no word yet on increase in Budgetary support.