RailEnquiry

The 200-odd railway guards under the Trivandrum division would resort to a “work-to-rule” protest soon by appearing for duty only for the prescribed duty hours. Their grouse: the railway is not filling the 47 vacant posts in the category.“We are forced to do overwork on a regular basis. They are not granting leave for anyone in the category even for emergencies.The situation is getting worse as more people are set to retire soon,” guard welfare association secretary A.V. Prakash said.The employees would press their case before the top railway authorities here on Friday. If the scenario would not change, they would launch the protest, he said.Railway officials said chances were that the goods train services would be badly hit, as also a few passenger train services.The association says no personnel had been recruited for the vacant posts in the last one year and the railways were promoting staff to the post.