8th Pay Commission: Indian Railways employees' association demands ₹52,600 minimum pay, fitment factor of 3.80 — Details

The Indian Railways Technical Supervisors Association (IRTSA), in its meeting with the 8th Pay Commission (8th CPC), has demanded an increase in the minimum pay to ₹52,600, a fitment factor of up to 3.80, and better pay levels and allowances for employees.

In an official release issued after meeting with the 8th CPC in Hyderabad last month, the employees' group said it has submitted a comprehensive memorandum to the panel. The presentation was made by IRSTA General Secretary K V Ramesh, “on specific issues pertaining to Technical Supervisors”, the release said. 

Career stagnation, pay hikes: What are the demands?

The association, in its statement, said that it highlighted to the panel issues related to career stagnation among the Railways technical supervisors. Key demands, it said, include:

• Increase pay levels for Junior Engineers and Senior Section Engineers to better reflect their duties and the hazardous nature of work.
• Classifying Senior Section Engineers as Group B gazetted status.
• Revising the minimum pay to ₹52,600 based on modern economic factors and different fixation factors was demanded.
• Higher indexing of fitment factor should be followed for posts from level 6 in the Ministry of Railways, for safety category posts.
• Fitment factor for level 1 post has arrived as 2.92, fitment factor for posts level 6, 7 and 8 should be “2.92 x 1.2 = 3.50”.
• For mid-position posts in pay levels 9 to 12, the fitment factor of “2.92 x 1.3 = 3.80” should be adopted.

• Introduction of a group incentive scheme for open line engineers and staff based on the benchmarks of the Railway Board for various maintenance activities.

What issues are related to Railways' technical staff?

According to the statement, Ramesh highlighted several key issues related to “anomalies in pay level for Junior Engineers and Senior Section Engineers”, i.e. JEs and SSEs. These include:

• Demand for a five-grade structure starting from level 7 for JEs for technical supervisors,
• Disturbance of vertical relativities and horizontal parities with other categories,
• Distribution of Group-A, B and C posts in technical departments of Railways and insufficient Group-B posts,
• Classification of SSE posts as Group-B,

• Stagnation among the cadre, particularly in the SSE grade and stagnation of Graduate Engineers recruited as SSE in their entry grade,
• Inclusion of a training period for the purpose of the Modified Assured Career Progression Scheme (MACPS),
• Implementation of MACPS w.e.f. 01.01.2006 and its related court judgements,
• Bottlenecks to the promotion to Group B due to a smaller number of Group B posts, unjustified comparison of running staff at lower grade with Technical Supervisors and continuance of the bottleneck at the Group B level,
• Allowances related to Technical Supervisors, including night duty allowance, overtime allowance, Production Control Organisation (PCO) Allowance, etc.

It added that Ramesh briefed the panel on the withdrawal of PCO allowance for SSE in level-8, including explaining the Railways' incentive system (self-financed within the Railways) and its role in improving productivity of PUs and workshops, and extension of accident-free service award, risk and hardship allowance to open line engineers and staff.

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