New Delhi: The railway staff of Signal and Telecommunication has again approached the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) for their demands of allowing a Risk and Hardship allowance.
Highlighting the demands for Risk and Hardship allowance, Indian Railway S&T Maintainers’ Union (IRSTMU) General Secretary Alok Chandra Prakash told Railhunt, “We have approached the PMO a third time now regarding our demand to get approved risk and hardship allowance.”
Prakash said it is a long-standing demand of our union regarding this issue. “Members have written letters to railways and PMO but no concrete result has come out yet,” Prakash added.
Alok Chandra Prakash, General Secretary, IRSTMU
Union members said S&T staff work on tracks to maintain circuits, signals, points and switches which are situated either on track or adjacent to tracks.
In October, the PMO, in reference to their grievance, informed union workers that the proposal regarding the grant of Risk & Hardship Allowance to fresh categories is still under consideration by the Ministry of Finance and the matter is being pursued at the highest level in the Ministry of Finance.
The Union has again filed an online grievance and demanded approval. “We have been demanding for Risk & Hardship Allowance for a long time and have approached Railways several times,” Prakash added.
“In September, IRSTMU had written a letter to the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) and raised their grievance about approval of the Risk & Hardship allowance. The Union had filed its grievance in February and got a reply in May in which PMO informed a committee was constituted in the Ministry of Railways to examine the issue of inclusion of fresh categories within the ambit of Risk & Hardship allowance. The Committee has submitted its report and a suitable proposal has been forwarded to the Ministry of Finance and a reply from the ministry is awaited,” an office-bearer said.
Pointing out this issue, Navin Kumar, National President, IRSTMU told Railhunt, “Risk and Hardship allowance of Rs 2700 is already being given to some departments. S&T staff also face risk during duty in view of the risk during working, they should be provided the same risk allowance which is our genuine demand.”
Union members said at present the engineering department and station controller are being provided risk allowance but S&T staff who work on tracks or adjourning tracks don’t get risk and hardship allowance.
“The engineering department gets Rs 2700 and Station Controllers receive Rs 5000 this allowance per month. But S&T staff who mostly work on tracks maintain circuits, signals, points and switches which are situated either on track or adjacent to tracks so they always work under risk there,” Prakash said.
