MIRZA CHEUKI

North Central Railway

Headquarter

Public Relations

Prayagraj

No. 11PR/02/2020Press Release Date: 13.04.2020

North Central Railway extends helping hands to all stakeholders like porters , contractual staff etc.

Indian Railways are o­ne of the world’s largest organization serving under single management. The organization supports crores of livelihood directly and indirectly across the nation. North Central Railway being its integral part not o­nly serves the critical routes of IR, but also shares this social responsibility. Besides regular employees and customers there are many other stakeholders like, contract labors, outsourced staff, YatriSahayaks, coolies or licensed porters etc. During the current scenario when the entire nation is fighting against the Pandemic COVID-19 and undergoing the nationwide lockdown, North Central Railway has extended the supporting hand to these less privileged partners, who in normal days earn their livelihood through the services they deliver to Railways or to its customers. Shri Rajiv Chaudhry, General Manager, North Central Railway has directed all the departments & divisions to lend all possible help to these no less important IR family members. The few steps taken to reduce their hardships are as following:-

·The Railway officers and staff are providing ration to licensed porters at various stations like, the coolies stationed at Aligarh railway station of Prayagraj Division were provided ration kits each carrying 5Kg wheat floor, 1Kg pulses, 1 Kg salt and 1 Kg of potato. Similar exercise is being undertaken at other major stations o­n North Central Railway .

·The YatriSahayaks/Coolies living in the vicinity of railway stations are being provided with the food packets prepared by RPF,IRCTC base kitchen or other collective efforts of various departments.

·Uttar Pradesh Government has announced Rs. 1000/- as financial aidto all labourersin the state . All the three divisions of NCR – Agra Jhansi and Prayagraj have prepared/preparing the list of porters with requisite documents like Aadhar and bank account details. Agra division has 117 porters at different stations of Agra and 107 at Mathura. Theseporters of Agra division havealready received payment of this support amount in their accounts after submission of requisite documents. While there are 80 porters at Jhansistation, 9 at Lalitpur, 2 at Orai and 2 at Banda stations under Jhansi Division andPrayagraj Division has more than 500 porters including 150 porters at PrayagrajJn, 157 at Kanpur Central, 53 at Tundla, 44 at Aligarh , 42 at Mirzapur , 5 at Vindhychal , 5 at Prayagrajchheokietc.Both Prayagraj and Jhansi divisions have compiled list of porter with requisite details and submitted to state government and financial aid of Rs 1000 has started coming tobeneficiary account in these divisions too.

·To reduce the hardships and to protect the interests of contractual and outsourced staff engaged in providing services such as o­n Board House Keeping services (OBHS) in trains, sanitation, pantry cars, stations, offices and other commercial activities, Ministry of Railways has already decided that such staff will be treated ‘on duty’ and be paid accordingly till the expiry of suspension of services/lockdown or as advised by Central Government in this regard. This is applicable o­n contracts awarded o­n manpower basis. For contracts awarded o­n lumpsum basis (i.e. not o­n manpower basis), maximum payment which may be made shall be limited to 70% of the contract value. Railway Board has issued necessary instructions to Zonal Railways to ensure that the contractual staff and outsourced employees are not retrenched due to the suspension of services/lockdown.

According to Shri Rajiv Chaudhry GM/NCR & NR “These support staff are the integral part of Railway working , and it is our duty to help them in this difficult time.”