Serious disappointment among Railway Employees on retrograde and perverse recommendations of the 7th CPC

NFIR
National Federation of Indian Railways
3, CHELMSFORD ROAD, NEW DELHI – 110 055
Affiliated to;
Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC)
International Transport Workers Federation (ITF)

No.IV/NFIR/7th CPC/CORRES (MoF)

Dated: 13-12-2015

Shri Suresh Prabhu
Hon’ble Minister for Railways
Rail Mantralaya
Rail Bhavan
New Delhi.

Respected Sir,

Sub: Serious disappointment among Railway Employees on retrograde and perverse recommendations of the 7th CPC – reg.

NFIR brings to the kind notice of Hon’ble MR that the Railway Employees are very much disappointed over the retrograde and perverse recommendation of the 7th Central pay commission.

Federation desires to state that the pay Commission has not considered the duties, responsibilities, remoteness and hard working conditions of Railways Employees of various categories while deciding the Pay Structure (Pay Matix). On perusal of report, it is also noticed that the Railway Ministry has not conveyed to the pay commission, the hard working conditions, nature of jobs being performed by the Railway Employees and the risks involved while their duties are unique, uncommon and complex.

In this connection, Federation brings to your kind notice that the 6th CPC anomalies relating to Railways Employees were discussed with the Railway Board. Consequently, it was agreed to rectify the under noted anomalies:-

(a) Merger of Technician Grade-II (GP 2400/-)with the Technician Grade-I (GP 2800/-)
(b) Replecement of GP 4600/- with GP 4800/-
(c) Placement of Mail/Express Loco Pilots in GP 4600/-
(d) Placement of JA Grade Officials in PB-4

However, the above proposals of Railway Ministry have not been cleared by the Finance Ministry and when the 7th Central Pay Commission was constituted, the Finance Ministry conveniently evaded. Although the above agreements were highlighted to the 7th Central Pay Commission by the NFIR, it is sad to note that the Railway Ministry has never taken initiative to apprise the 7th CPC relating to the above agreed proposals. The failure of the Railways Board in highlighting the facts and the commitments given to the Federation (NFIR) has caused grave justice to the staff. Similarly, on many issues, the Pay Commission has ignored the valid justification placed by the Federation seeking improved pay structure/Pay Matrix and incentives for railway categories. Overall, there is unhappiness and anger among all sections of Railway employees.

Apart from the above negative situation, the Pay Commission has given retrograde recommendations on “Minimum wage” and “Multiplication factor. Several Allowances have been recommended to be abolished.

In view of the above development, the National Joint Council of Action (NJCA) has since conveyed to the Government to take steps for constituting Group of Ministers Committee to initiate discussions for reaching negotiated settlement on the charter of demands by 1st week of February. If the Government fails to work towards negotiated settlement by that date, the Railway Employees as well as Central Government Employees will be driven to go on Indefinite stike from 1st week of March, 2016.

NFIR invites kind attention of Hon’ble MR to the pending issues already discussed with the Railway Board (CRB,MS) more than once by the Federation but unfortunately there has been no satisfactory settlement of the issues.

NFIR hopes that you would take initiative for ensuring negotiated settlement on Railway issues very early.

Yours faithfully,

Sd/-
(Dr.M.Raghavaiah)
General Secretary.

Source: NFIR