Title - Railway employees rail against official visits on weekends

NASHIK: Indian Railways employees, under the banner of the Central Railway Mazdoor Sangh (CRMS), on Tuesday condemned the visits of senior officials on weekends and holidays, claiming that the impromptu trips took a toll on supervisors on their only day of rest."Officials come here with their families under the guise of official visits, enjoy their weekends by visiting religious places and vineyards and spoil our only rest days," members of the union said during their five-hour agitation.Employees and officials, including the supervisory staff of the Railways at Nashik Road, came together to protest the frequent visits by senior officials.Presenting a 27-point memo to the senior officials, Sunderam Jha, secretary of the union's Nashik Road unit, said, "Officials can plan their visits to Nashik. But coming here on weekends with families and going shopping while keeping officials waiting creates a wrong impression."Jha added, "The divisional railway manager (DRM)'s Office awards tenders to cleanliness contractors, who are inexperienced. The party which was given the Nashik contract ran away. Now there is nobody in charge. How can officers here be responsible for lack of cleanliness when they are managing with skeletal staff? Same is the case with vacancies, where the Railways is hell-bent on surrendering posts instead of recruiting new persons."The union claimed that officials were literally tortured and harassed the supervisors and if this was not stopped at the earliest then they would be forced to agitate in front of the office of DRM on June 12. "We will do anything to take this resolution to logical end," jha said.