INDIAN RAILWAYS WILL NEVER BE PRIVATISED” – ANNOUNCED BY MANOJ SINHA,                        

HON’BLE MOSR

Dear Comrades!

 We may feel a great amount of satisfaction that, Hon’ble MoSR, Shri Manoj Sinha, while addressing the Open Session of the 93rd Annual Convention of AIRF, categorically announced, amongst the gathering of more than fifteen thousand Railwaymen, that,  “in the present Narendra Modi Government, Indian Railways will never be privatized”. He further added, “so long Baba Vishwanath is there in Varanasi, Diesel Locomotive Works will also continue to work”. Naturally, the above speech received a lot of favour from the audience, who were quite anxious to listen to such popular words from the apex level. The MoSR also praised the Railwaymen as well as AIRF leadership and said that, the Railwaymen are operating the Railways 24X7, even sacrificing their valuable lives. He also said, “Indian Railway’s productivity, safety, efficiency and consumer-satisfaction, everything depends on the Railwaymen’s hard work and honest working”. Shri Sinha appealed the Railwaymen to make all out efforts to ensure safety, and also assured that, the genuine demands of the Railwaymen would be resolved as early as possible.

Undoubtedly, announcement of the Hon’ble MoSR has also praiseworthy, but there is sufficient ground to visualize that, privatization is creeping in the Indian Railways with massive outsourcing and contractualisation etc. Madhepura and Marhowra Electrical and Diesel Engine Production Units given by the Ministry of Railways to M/s GE and Alstom are obvious signals of mass-scale privatization in Indian Railways.

Moreover, Hon’ble Minister for Railways, Shri Piyush Goyal, had said, “frankly, I do not need any funds from the Union Budget. The Railways is looking at innovative ways to finance its expenditure”. As we, one of the important stakeholders, could not understood what innovative ways to find finance will be?  Is the name of innovative ways will not be privatization and corporatization? Railways are thinking to sell-out its infrastructure; starting with its electrification and maintenance. If such things happen, Railway’s safety will definitely be jeopardized.

There seems to be large contradiction in the statements of two ministers.

I also feel that, the Indian Railways, which is a popular and cheap mode of transport for common people of the country, cannot be privatized, but the evil designs and certain committees’ reports are often putting the stakeholders in stress, and in all the cases it has become essential that, our rank and file should remain prepared to meet out all the challenges, and that is the “Declaration” of our AIRF’s 93rd Annual Convention, held in Gorakhpur from 15-17 November, 2017.

With Best Regards,                               

                                                                                     

E-magazine AIRF DECEMBER 2017 has been uploaded below:-

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