Title - Decade-old posting order derailed

Kochi: The move by the Thiruvananthapuram division authorities to cancel about 40 posts of station masters may have stirred a hornet’s nest. But it is yet to implement a 2002 railway board order to post additional station masters to relive ‘stress.

The railway board order to all divisions to recruit additional station masters was taken after conducting a study which found ‘increasing stress’ due to work burden. The Southern railways was allotted 308 posts but not a single additional station master has been appointed in the Thiruvanantapuram division so far.

“When for years they failed to appoint personnel we resorted to protest and finally the order to appoint 55 ASMs was released in 2010. But the appointments were never made,” All-India Station Masters’ Association divisional secretary Udayaprasad said.

As a result the 371 station masters under the division are being denied leave even for urgent matters and many of them have to work for up to 16 hours at a stretch, going against the crux of the earlier study.

When contacted, a senior railway official said, there are not enough vacancies in the division. “There is not enough work to appoint 55 personnel; at the most 10 to 12 additional personnel are needed,” he said.