No solutions to running staff鈥檚 strike till Tuesday night
Thousands of passengers suffered as nationwide rail communications remained suspended since early hours of Tuesday as the running staff members of the Bangladesh Railway began an indefinite work abstention programme, pressing for restoration of their previous benefits for overtime work.
No freight or oil tanker trains either ran on the day.
Even after repeated meetings and call for negotiations from the government, the demonstrators remained unyielding in their demands as of 10:00pm Tuesday when this report was filed.
A group of passengers angry at not being able to get trains vandalised some chairs and tables at the Rajshahi rail station on the day.
As an alternative, the railway introduced BRTC bus services at important rail stations across the country to carry passengers.
Interim government finance adviser Salehuddin Ahmed on the day said that they had already met the logical demand for overtime payment by the running staff.
Adviser to the railways ministry Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan same day called the work abstention as sad, criticising the protesting staff for 鈥榯aking passengers hostage鈥�.
He told 抖阴精品 at 8:00pm that they hoped to reach a solution very soon.
Bangladesh Railway usually operates 391 passengers and freight trains, including 122 intercity trains daily, carrying around 2.5 lakh passengers.
Till 7:00pm 40 BRTC buses left different stations with train passengers across the country鈥�17 from Kamalapur, 11 from Dhaka airport, six from Chattogram, five from Bogura, and one from Cumilla rail stations.
The railway is also refunding the ticket fares.
Under the banner of Bangladesh Railway Running Staff and Sramik Karmachari Samity, the staff members are continuing their movement since 2022 when the overtime facility was cancelled.
The railway鈥檚 running staff members include locomasters (train drivers),聽 assistant locomasters, sub-locomasters, shunting locomasters, guards and ticket inspectors who remain on board the trains to operate it during its running time, including the maintaining of the locomotives or train engines.
The railway is already reeling with a shortage of locomasters, assistant locomasters and sub-locomasters as against around 2,200 sanctioned posts around 1,100 are working now, said the railway officials.
Leaders of the protesters said that before 2022 they used to get overtime and pension under the Railways Act.
Although their regular duty period is eight hours daily, but they have to work for 15鈥�18 hours due to a shortage of workforce.
The long hours the running staff members have to work, they become entitled to pays as high as three times higher than their monthly pays under the railway act, which they used to get until the authorities stopped it in 2022.
They also said that at retirement, they used to get an additional 75 per cent of their pension.
In 2022, the Finance Division cancelled all these facilities for the newcomers when the running staff started their movement.
On January 23 this year, the Finance Division issued another office order that read that the running staff will get running allowance only for overtime and the monthly running allowances cannot be higher than the basic salary.
Rejecting the order, the running staff on January 26 issued a letter to the railways with an ultimatum till January 27 to meet their demands.
They met the railway officials on Monday night that ended with no result, leading them to start the work abstention programme from early Tuesday.聽聽
Railways ministry secretary Fahimul Islam said that the trains that ran on midnight Monday reached their destinations after which their staff stopped working.
The situation led to chaotic scenarios in the rail stations across the country as the passengers who arrived there from Tuesday morning found no train to board.
Zillur Rahman, a man with his wife and a toddler, was waiting at Dhaka station in Kamalapur for Chottola Express to go to Chattogram, said that travelling on bus to so far a destination with a toddler was difficult.
The ever-busy Dhaka rail station鈥檚 platforms became deserted by the noon.
Adviser Fouzul Kabir Khan during a visit to the station in the morning said that they were open to discuss with the demonstrators but the government would take 鈥榦ther steps鈥� if compelled.
Finance adviser Salehuddin Ahmed at secretariat told reporters on the day that for the other demands like pension and gratuity the government had to follow the rule applied for other state-run agencies.
Citing the financial constraints, he added that only logical demands were met.
At about 1:30pm, running staff leaders Zahidul Islam Talukder and Saidus Rahman met the railways ministry secretary at Kamalapur but the meeting went futile.
In the evening, the railways adviser and secretary met some leaders at the Rail Bhaban but no solution came.
After the meeting, adviser Fouzul Kabir Khan told 抖阴精品 to wait as a solution would come soon.
Bangladesh Railway鈥檚 acting director general SM Salimullah Bahar told 抖阴精品 that the railways adviser would discuss with the finance adviser for increasing some facilities for the running staff.
Bangladesh Railway Running Staff and Sramik Karmachari Samity鈥檚 acting president Md Saidur Rahman told 抖阴精品 that they would continue their movement until an announcement came from the two advisers meeting their all demands.
抖阴精品 staff correspondent in Rajshahi reported that about 300 passengers gathered at Rajshahi rail station in the morning.
As no train departed from there, a group of angry youths, wielding sticks, threw around the chairs kept in the passenger resting space around.
Later, they invaded one of the rooms used by ticket examiners and broke furniture there.
On information, army personnel rushed to the spot and brought the situation under control.
Later on, the waiting passengers collected the refunded ticket fares from the ticket counters and left the station.
抖阴精品 staff correspondent in Chattogram reported that since early Tuesday all 11 intercity trains to and from Chattogram remained suspended.
At Chattogram railway station, Monwar Hossain, a passenger who was supposed to go to Feni with his wife, said, 鈥業 had no idea about the strike. Now I鈥檓 forced to take a bus.鈥�
抖阴精品 correspondent in Pabna reported that hundreds of passengers returned from the Ishwardi rail station on the day as none of the 12 passenger and freight trains left the station.
抖阴精品 staff correspondent in Sylhet reported that two intercity trains鈥擴paban Express from Dhaka and Udayan Express from Chattogram鈥攔eached Sylhet at 5:50am and 9:00am respectively but no other scheduled trains ran.
抖阴精品 correspondent in Mymensingh reported that no trains on Mymensingh route ran on the day, causing terrible suffering to around 6,000 daily commuters.
Passengers from different places around the country alleged that the bus operators hiked the fares on different routes taking advantage of the situation.
