M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, Mar 20: A tussle is on between the train guards and the railway ministry regarding the ‘line box.’
The ministry of railways is phasing out the oldest line box with the guards. It says the line box is cumbersome and is a vestige of colonialism.
The ministry of railways reiterates that time has come to substitute it with a smart trolley bag.
However, the railway guards are opposed to it. They want to continue to have the line boxes with them.
Train guards are now christened as train managers but they have their registered council in the name of All India Guards Council which has taken up the cudgels for its 30,000 strong guards across India.
The guards argue that the line box has been a permanent feature of the Indian railways since the day of its inception and never in its history of 150 years, has the line box been seen or found a liability or any cumbersome and so how does it become now.
They contest that the trolley bag can never be any replacement for the line box.
General secretary of the All India Guards Council S P Singh in one of his letters to the Chief Labour Commissioner of the union ministry of labour and employment has urged the authorities not to use ‘brute force’ to withdraw the line box and put it in its place trolley bag.
The general secretary has then counted the benefits of the line box which not only carries manual operation book of the trains down to multi-colour torch, tail lamp, green and red flags, medical kit, whistle and chain, detonators etc but even the provisions of the guards on duty and in the train like their winter warmer, rain protective gear, raw food to ready to eat food, toiletries etc.
The general secretary has asked the railway officials if the trolley bag has this much space to have all these multifarious things that can be kept there.
Sources said the ministry of railways insist the introduction of trolley bags will cut into expenditures that come for the porter that handles the line box which weighs more than 10 kgs.
From cost-effective, the trolley bag is further a modern means of the convenience of the guards.
On the other hand, guards say if the railway ministry is so determined to modernise its things, then the first thing that it should do is to refurbish the brake van of the trains.
The guards said the brake vans are like torture cells where comfort and convenience are a great miss and how does a guard or train manager sound 8 hours there is worth imagining.
Pravin Kumar, the secretary of the Barwadih branch of the All India Guards Council said the guards had held a dharna at the Barwadih railway junction recently demanding continuation of the line box.
Pravin said, “Our demand is very genuine and legitimate and can’t be seen as any of our retrogressive outlooks. The line box is with us for decades and can’t become something to be discarded for trolley bag overnight.”
