Title - Services go off track as staff crunch hits railway station

Amritsar : Staff crunch at Amritsar Railway Station has hit services. Railway employees at the station have been coping with high number of trains and limited number of platforms. A widening gap between demand and supply of manpower has resulted in commuters’ ire directed towards local railway employees.The railway station has been witnessing departure and arrival of 128 trains daily. However, it has only six platforms, namely one to five and 1A. Passengers regularly complain that trains being stopped at nearby railway stations in wait for a vacant platform. A daily passenger Nishan Singh said trains are frequently halted at nearby stations awaiting clearance of platforms.The city of Golden Temple receives tourists and pilgrims from across the country and all over the world. On an average, daily footfall of passengers is over 26,500 at the railway station.To ensure smooth flow of movement of trains, yards provide backup service to the operations of the railway station as the staff posted over there overhauls trains to prepare them afresh to undertake long journey. As many as 30 positions are lying vacant over there. Against the sanctioned strength of 110 employees, it has got 80 workers only. It has got only four yard masters against the sanctioned six. There is a shortage of two shunting masters as only eight of them are available.

Highest shortage is of shunt man and pointsman. Against the sanctioned strength of 42, only 22 are presently working while 20 seats are lying vacant. Following this, there are six vacancies of cabin men against sanctioned 23 positions. For shunting (moving) of a train between the railway station and the yard, two shunt men and a shunt master are required. Scarcity of employees at this level infringes safety of trains. A number of times trains have derailed while shunting.

The reservation branch, which handles serpentine queues of public, has seven vacant positions while sanctioned positions are 34. Keeping in view public pressure, the railway administration has two shifts from 8 am to 2 pm and evening shift from 2 pm to 10 pm.

There are 16 goods guards against the sanctioned strength of 19 and 16 mail express guards are available against the sanctioned 18.

Similarly, six box porters (Class IV employees who place and take out boxes containing travel documents in trains) are available against the sanctioned nine.

Divisional Railway Manager, Northern Railway’s Ferozepur division, Naresh Chander Goel said “We have been recruiting employees regularly as per the requirement. The present shortage of manpower in no way hampers main operations.”