Railway running staff stops overtime duty
Running staff of the Bangladesh Railway stopped working after eight hours of duty from Tuesday as per their earlier announcement, demanding restoration of their previous benefits for working extra hours.
The running staff, including loco master, assistant loco master, sub loco master or shunting loco master, carriage attendant, guards and ticket checkers, also announced a demonstration and rally for Wednesday.
Earlier, they threatened to go on full work abstention from 31 January if all their demands were not met by 30 January.
The running staff usually performs overtime duty beyond an eight hour schedule due to a shortage of manpower.
Talking to The Business Standard, Railway East Zone General Manager Jahangir Hossain said they had a plan for tackling the crisis in work hours, but whether it would be effective or not cannot be predicted now.
Rail Sramik League Organising Secretary Sajjad Hossen said there are some technical issues in the railways which the finance ministry is not understanding. Their circular has agitated and dissatisfied railway staff, he said.
At present, there are 166 train drivers instead of 234 at Pahartoli of Railway East Zone. Of them, the number of chief train drivers is only 101, assistant loco master 113 and sub loco master 20.
