Resp. Shri Piyush Goyal Ji!
Reg.: Appointments on compassionate ground, under LARSGESS, and recruitment of the Course
Completed Act Apprentices in the Railways
I write to bring to your kind notice that, as you are well aware that, Indian Railways is an operational organization with 24X7 hours working throughout the year and presently running around 22,000 trains(Freight and Passenger) everyday. Working of the Indian Railways, being peculiar, certain policies were framed after detailed deliberations and duly considering all the aspects and pros and cons as well……
D.O.No.AIRF/24(C) Dated: October 14, 2017
Resp. Shri Piyush Goyal Ji!
Reg.: Appointments on compassionate ground, under LARSGESS, and recruitment of the Course
Completed Act Apprentices in the Railways
I write to bring to your kind notice that, as you are well aware that, Indian Railways is an operational organization with 24X7 hours working throughout the year and presently running around 22,000 trains(Freight and Passenger) everyday. Working of the Indian Railways, being peculiar, certain policies were framed after detailed deliberations and duly considering all the aspects and pros and cons as well.
You may appreciate that, there are certain vulnerable categories of the Railwaymen, particularly related to Railway Safety, like Loco Pilot, Track Maintainer, Technicians of various disciplines engaged in maintenance of rolling stock, signaling and track, and supporting staff, who are required to discharge their duties with optimum output, for which their physical fitness is of quite paramount importance. Considering aging factor on the Railway Staff, employed in these vulnerable categories, it was deliberated in the “Safety Seminar”, held on 12-13.07.2003 in National Rail Transport Museum, Chanakya Puri, New Delhi, with the then Hon’ble Minister for Railways, Shri Nitish Kumar, who prefer to discuss the ground reality with the field staff of various Safety Categories. After detailed deliberations and duly considering the job requirement, it was unanimously decided that, Loco Pilots and Track Maintainers, who are not maintaining good health and feel uncomfortable in properly discharging their duties, may be permitted to opt for Voluntary Retirement subject to fulfillment of certain conditions with the provision to appoint their eligible wards, who fulfill requisite educational qualification prescribed for open market recruitment as also pass medical fitness in the same standard and pre-requisite training at the identified Training Centres, as Asstt. Loco Pilot or Trackmen in the Railways, as the case may be. This scheme was further extended to cover some other safety categories in erstwhile GP Rs.1800 and 1900 and had been working well without any hurdle.
It may further be added that, only a marginal percentage of vacancies, occurring in these identified safety categories, could be filled-up through LARSGESS, and major portion was bring filled-up from the open market through the RRBs and RRCs. This scheme, therefore, cannot be treated as “backdoor entry” to the Railways or ultra vires as the same has been quite useful in the larger interest of safe rail operation.
So far as appointment on compassionate ground is concerned, this is a very sensitive issue for the Railwaymen. In Indian Railways there has been an established practice to offer appointment to the dependent family member of the deceased Railway employee or medically in-capacitated employee to support the bereaved family to earn livelihood. Indian Railways is a big department, unlike other Central Government Departments, after the Defence, wherein a substantial number of Railwaymen used to loss their lives during the course of performing their duties, and this has been duly acknowledged by the High Power Committee, constituted by the Ministry of Railways, headed by
Dr. Anil Kakodkar. The issue of offering compassionate ground appointment has, therefore, been discussed and deliberated repeatedly at all the levels and at the level of DoP&T also, and the organized labour had succeeded in convincing the Railway Administration to continue with offering appointment on compassionate ground on one-to-one basis. Any deviation with this policy is likely to lead to avoidable serious unrest in the Indian Railways.
As regards absorption of Course Completed Act Apprentices, who undergo Apprenticeship Training in the Railway establishments, they were also being absorbed against large number of posts lying vacant in the safety categories as process of recruitment in Railways is quite tardy, and vacancies remained unfilled for quite some time, posing potential danger to Rail Safety. Skilled manpower, trained in the Railways, was, therefore, inducted in the Railways against vacancies in the Safety Categories in erstwhile Group `D’ posts, who have always proved their worth and working in performing their duties with full dedication and hard work. We fully support Government of India’s policy – “Skilled India”.
It would not be out of context to mention here that, in the recent amendments brought out by the Government of India in the Apprenticeship Act, it has been clearly provided for therein that, the employers, those who are imparting training under this scheme, can make their own policy on recruitment/regularization of the candidates imparted training in their establishments, so there is nothing wrong in absorbing/regularizing/regularizing those Course Completed Act Apprentices in the Indian Railways who are imparted training in different Railway establishments.
I would, therefore, earnestly request you to consider the aforementioned facts in detail, and any deviation in the established policies be resorted to, that too without consulting the Organized Labour, as all these policies have been framed after detailed deliberations with the Organized Labour in the past. Any move to deviate from the above is likely to pose serious threat to industrial harmony in Indian Railways, as you know, there has been total industrial peace in the Indian Railways over four decades with mutual trust and respect between the Railway Administration and Organized Labour.
I sincerely hope, you will give deep thought on it before taking any otherwise decision in the matter.
With Kind Regards!
