New Year Bonanza: Mamata Banerjee

Patna, Jan. 6: Minister of railways Mamata Banerjee has extended, for the first time, the facility of AC three-tier travel for the lowest grade pay railway employees with family once a year.

Disclosing this, the East Central Railway chief public relations officer, Dilip Kumar, said: “The employees include gangmen and khalasis among others who work day and night to help provide train services to the passengers throughout the year in the most difficult of situations.”

He further added: “They would now have the facility of travelling once a year with their families in 3AC class on Indian Railways. Mamata Banerjee provided this as a New Year bonanza for all railway employees based on the new pay structure under 6th Central Pay Commission already implemented by the central government. This move of the railways will lead to tremendous motivation to all levels of employees, particularly those working in lower grades. Railwaymen in the lower grade pay (Group D) were earlier not entitled to travel in AC classes.”

Dilip Kumar said: “This step bridges the gap between seniors and juniors and has been felicitated by all employees and federations. The revised entitlement of travel on railway passes has also extended AC 2-tier facilities to all junior engineers and their equivalent supervisors working in grade pay of Rs 4,200. This new criteria of entitlement has also simultaneously simplified the existing rules for entitlement with only grade pay as the sole criterion as against multiple variables like payscale, pay and date of appointment which were prevailing earlier.

Niraj Kumar, a gangman at Sonepur railway station, said: “This is unbelievable, I never thought that the railway ministry would ever take such a step for us. Till now, we were just clearing and putting stones here and there but such kind of respect is really admirable and we are thankful to Indian Railways.”

Another trolley man, Ram Ujagar, said: “Earlier, we used to take our family by general class, travelling in AC coaches is something what dreams coming true are made up of. But now Mamata Banerjee has given us the chance to travel by AC class once a year and she has made our dreams come true. It would also give a special status to us among the railway employees and I don’t think we would be treated inferior when compared to other railway employees.”

ECR general manager has welcomed the move and said: “The move taken by the railway ministry is historic, so far only the officers used to get the benefit but now even the lowest grade employee can avail of the facility.”