Manpower crunch hits maintenance

KOLKATA: Ever wondered how many people are actually involved in the maintenance of Metro Railway rakes at night? According to sources, only eight people are designated to check and maintain 14 rakes at the Noapara and Tollygunge carsheds.
"Daytime maintenance is no longer possible as we don't have sufficient rakes. Every night, after commercial services are over, eight maintenance staff have to tackle nine rakes at the Noapara carshed and five at Tollygunge.All 14 have to be ready by morning. It is not humanly possible to thoroughly check the undercarriages of all these rakes and also carry out necessary repairs by this time," an official said.
Added to this is the non-availability of spares. As nearly 50% of the existing 18 conventional rakes are at least 25 years old, their spares are no longer available off the shelf. Officials do not know how much longer they can continue to cannibalise the coaches that have gone out of service.
A few months ago, Metro had urged the Railway Board to fill up 300 vacancies. Nearly 100 of these vacancies are in the maintenance department. The Railway Board paid little heed to the Metro's plea, though it was a known fact that more staff would be required when the network is extended upto Kavi Subhas.
"The situation got so grim that people involved in periodic overhaul (POH) of rakes were redesignated to the running of trains in the newly opened section. POH of rakes suffered as a result. When senior officials realised this, the staff were sent back for their original duties. Now, we don't have sufficient staff for operations," the official said.
Before commercial services started upto Kavi Subhas, senior officials were aware that such a situation would develop. However, none of them "dared" to bring the matter to the notice of railway minister Mamata Banerjee or urge her to defer the opening of the stretch till a further date.
According to insiders, the signalling and telecommunications department one of the most crucial ones for the Metro is practically in a shambles. This was not revealed to Mamata or officials of the Railway Board for reasons best known to those in charge of the Metro.
"Everybody believed that things would get better in due course. They had no clue as to how this would happen unless the issues were taken up by those in charge of the ministry. Today, we have reached a situation when nobody knows how long it would take to get things back on track. A sense of helplessness is gradually creeping in and people are getting resigned to the fact that disruptions will take place on a regular basis," another official said.
Union leaders believe that the new general manager has his task cut out. They sounded happy that Amar Nath has been relieved of charge. "I had taken up these issues with Amar Nath a couple of months ago. He reacted as if I was talking through my hat," said Dilip Mukherjee, general secretary of the Metro Railwaymen's Union.