Disruption to the train services across the country continued for the third consecutive day on Tuesday as the running staff members of the Bangladesh Railway continued their movement for restoration of their previous benefits for working extra hours.
On the day, journeys of some local and commuter trains were cancelled and most of the trains ran behind their schedules by one hour to one hour and a half amid huge sufferings of the passengers.
Journeys of some freight trains were also cancelled to run the passenger trains on the priority basis, they added.
Since December 1 the railway staff, under the banner of the Bangladesh Railway Running Staff and Sramik Karmachari Samity, stopped doing additional duty except scheduled eight hours and stopped doing duty at rest.
The running staff members included locomasters, assistant locomasters, sub-locomasters and shunting locomasters who are directly involved in running the trains and maintaining the locomotives or the train engines.
The railway is already reeling with the shortage of these locomasters as against 2,200 sanctioned posts about 1,000 are working now, said the union leaders.
According to the Bangladesh Railway鈥檚 central control office on Tuesday six local trains on the Mymensingh-Mohonganj, Mymensingh- Jharia Jhanjail and Mymensingh-Dewanganj and two trains on the Chattogram-Nazirhat routes were cancelled.
Some four to five freight trains were also not being operated due to lack of running staff to run them, said officials.
The railway officials at Kamalapur Railway Station in Dhaka also said that on Tuesday the journeys of Turag Express on the Dhaka to Joydevpur route had been cancelled.
At the station on Tuesday afternoon a huge number of passengers were seen waiting for trains.
鈥業t is frustrating to find that the trains are running late for the movement of the staff,鈥� said Shahidul Islam, a passenger of Kalni Express on the Sylhet route.
Trains including Kalni Express on the Dhaka-Sylhet, Silkcity Express on the Dhaka-Rajshahi, Rangpur Express on the Dhaka-Rangpur and Dolanchapa Express on Shantahar-Panchagarh routes were running by one hour and a half to one hour聽 behind their schedules.
According to the running staff members before 2022 they got special financial facilities under the Railways Act.
The running staff members including locomasters, assistant locomasters and sub-locomasters have duty period of eight hours daily, but they have to work for an average 15 to 18 hours due to shortage of workforces, they said.
Under the law, they got the mileage facility which meant that for every 100 kilometres of train run they received an additional amount of money equivalent to one day鈥檚 basic salary.
Following this, if a working day is defined by an eight-hour shift, the running staff members work the equivalent of maximum three months of working days in a single month and before 2022 they had got salaries like that.
In 2022, the Finance Division cancelled these facilities and the running staffs started their movement demanding these facilities again.
The union working president, Saidur Rahman, told 抖阴精品 on Tuesday that they would continue their movement until their demand was met.
