NFIR demands POH in SCR zones

Hyderabad: The South Central Railway (SCR) is third highest in revenue generation among the 17 zones in the country, but zones with lesser revenue have a workshop for carrying out periodic overhauling (POH) of electric locos.

The National Federation of Indian Railwaymen (NFIR) on Tuesday demanded that SCR get its fair share of recognition. It expressed the hope that a POH workshop would announced in Secunderabad and Vijayawada divisions.

The SCR has 589 effective electric locos on line that are homed on SCR at Electric Loco Shed, Lallaguda, (211), Electric Loco Shed, Vijayawada (219) and Electric Loco Shed, Kazipet (159) but for overhauling locos were moved to workshops in Bhusawal, Perumbur and Dahod.

M Raghavaiah, General Secretary, NFIR, said, “The locos have to travel anywhere between 430 km to 1,400 km for POH. SCR deserves a state-of-the-art workshop for carrying out periodic overhauling (POH) of electric
locos.

Approximately 100 electric locos are proposed for condemnation annually and on an average 300 to 350 are inducted every year. When a zone touches 600 locos it was mandatory to have a POH.

The wagon factory at Kazipet was another project that was delayed. The proposal for the wagon factory was first mooted in the Railway budget in 2010 and even talks of handing over land to Railways took place, SCR was not able to take possession of the land for several reasons including dealing with the issue of encroachment.

Another issue raised by Raghavaiah was autonomy of the Railway Board. With the merger of the railway budget with the general budget, and the Rs 9,000 crore dividend being paid by the Railways to the Central government, mandatory and the statutory powers of the Railways should not be diluted, he said.

A major demand included reverting to guaranteed pension scheme where a person after retirement is assured of 50 per cent of his last drawn pay which is not the case in the new pension scheme.