Lalu's sop not to porters liking, want old job back

BACK BREAKING WORK: Gangmen say the work of cleaning up gutters and digging up old sleepers is not what they bargained for.

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Mumbai: One of the most popular moves in 2008's Railway Budget was the promotion of porters to the status of gangmen, which made them railway employees.

The porters cheered Union Railways Minister Lalu Prasad’s announcement in February and they celebrated the decision to induct them as gangmen on the railway's employee rolls.

But a few months down the line the harsh reality has hit home.

Shivaji Kangre, 47-year-old, is one of the many porters who signed up to work as a gangman but is regretting his decision now.

"We want to go back to being porters or some other easier work that suits us. We cannot do this work," Kangre, now a gangman in the railways, says.

It is mostly the older men who are complaining about how strenuous the work is. They say that the work of cleaning up gutters for tracks and digging up old sleepers and fitting new ones is something they just did not expect.

"We made a mistake. We did not know about this work while filling up the forms," Ashok Popat Gule, another porter who is now a gangman, says.

Though the men are well aware of the fact that they will earn lesser as porters than as gangmen, they still want to go back to their old job because the work is just too hard on their ageing bodies.

The Railway Ministry is not unaware of these problems but it seems like the porters will have to follow another paper trail before they get their old badges back.

"We will have meeting with the DRM and Railway Minister. The decision can be taken at the GM level and process will be followed," Naranbhai Rathwa, Minister of State, Railways, says.

Till all of that happens, the porters-turned-gangmen will have to choose their livelihood over their health.

(With inputs from Meetu Jain and Kajal Iyer)