Driver crisis caused by mileage issues disrupts train movement

Afroza Afrin, a resident of Nazirhat, brought her ailing mother to Chattogram to see a doctor. On their way home on Wednesday, they came to Chittagong Railway Station, only to discover that the Nazirhat-bound train would not run. As such, they had to make the journey home on a bus, enduring the hassles of traffic jams.

Like Afroza, thousands of passengers on internal routes in different districts suffered a lot as many trains could not run due to a shortage of drivers amid the ongoing protest demanding a restoration of mileage allowance for railway running staff – drivers, guards and ticket-checkers.

Due to the crisis of drivers, at least 20 trains on Chattogram, Dhaka and Narayanganj internal routes could not operate on Wednesday.

Since last Tuesday, railway running staff have been on strike demanding a restoration of rail mileage facilities, and making it known that they would not work for more than eight hours. They have also called a strike from 31 January if the demand is not met. As a result, fears have been growing that railway communication in the country may be completely disrupted.

Ratan Kumar Chowdhury, manager of Chattogram Railway Station, told The Business Standard (TBS) some train schedules had to be cancelled due to a driver crisis.

Railway running staff used to get a special overtime allowance, equal to one day's basic salary, for operating every 100 miles, or every eight hours they work, in addition to their prescribed duties. But as the department started using a special software named iBAS++ in 2020 to pay salaries and allowances of railway workers, their allowances shrank, railway sources said.

The finance ministry reduced the 150-year-old allowance because the software cannot handle entries over 3,000 miles a month. Railway workers said a running staff member has to be on a train for about 8,000-10,000 miles a month.

As a result, even after working extra hours, such staff are being deprived of the benefits they have been provided with since British times. The problem was not resolved despite their sending a letter to the railway ministry on the issue.

The running staff have now demanded that the mileage allowance be restored as it was before.

In response to an appeal of the railway in this regard, the finance ministry set the highest mileage allowance equal to the salary of 30 working days.

But drivers, guards and ticket-checkers on trains are reluctant to do extra work with reduced allowances. They have been staging demonstrations in different parts of the country for the last few weeks to protest the reduced mileage allowances. They have warned of tougher agitation if the issue is not resolved immediately.

"We have repeatedly stated the issues and waited for a long time but did not get any response. Now our decision is to continue the movement till our demands are fully realized," Railway Running Unity Parishad's Chattogram Divisional Convener Mujibur Rahman Bhuiyan told TBS.

Md Jahangir Hossain, general manager of Bangladesh Railway (east zone), told TBS that the requests of the running staff had been communicated to the higher authorities. The authorities are working on resolving the crisis.

Railway sources said the running staff include loco master, assistant loco master and sub loco master or shunting loco master, carriage attendant, guard and ticket tracker.

The new notification of the Ministry of Finance has also brought mileage facilities for carriage attendants.