Railway union flays 'retrograde' proposals

Says pay panel's recommendations will reduce salary of 90% of workers

The recommendations of the Seventh Central Pay Commission (7th CPC)   would reduce, rather than increase, the “take home” salary of 90 per cent of the Indian Railways’ workforce, the largest railway trade union has alleged. The recommendations are effective from the current month and would lead to a total annual wage burden of Rs 28,000 crore, the government estimates.

The National Federation of Indian Railwaymen (NFIR), that represents more than 90 per cent of the railways’ workforce, has said 1.3 million railway employees are “seriously disturbed” over what they call retrograde recommendations of the panel with regard to their pay structure as their take-home salary would be less than what they currently receive, particularly employees living in government accomodation.

“Those being covered against pay levels 1 to 12 of the seventh CPC Pay Matrix are approximately 90 per cent of the workforce in the Indian Railways and these employees are seriously disappointed as their ‘take home’ salary after waiting 10 years would be reduced ranging from Rs 2,000 to Rs 6,000 per month with effect from January 1,” NFIR said, without explaining how it arrived at the conclusion.

It added the hike in wages will either be marginal or less than what is received now, NFIR general secretary M Raghavaiah said.

In response to the “illogical” recommendations, the union has threatened to go on an indefinite strike in the first week of March after participating in a three-day dharna at Jantar Mantar along with employees of Defence and Postal services. “The 7th CPC has done grave injustice to the employees in the Railways as well in the Central government employees with regard to multiplying factor and computation of need based minimum wage," NFIR said, adding a comparison with earlier pay panels reveals several of the current recommendations are negative and illogical.