Metro staff offers one month truce

KOLKATA: The running staff of Kolkata's Metro Rail or the people directly involved in running the regular underground train services decided on Monday to allow a month's time before taking any major move like refusing to drive the trains. On July 31 the drivers refused to drive trains saying that they were regularly harassed by passengers for no fault of their own.The running staff association had claimed that the authorities were been provided with faulty and semi-maintained trains, which were prone to defects during commercial runs. "Among the main issues raised by us, were the door closing problem and the lack of functioning of the fans inside most the of coaches. These two problems have been dogging not only the passengers, but also the drivers and the guards on the trains who come in direct contact with the passengers on a daily basis," said Dilip Mukherjee, president of the Metro Mens' Union. "Apart from these, regular incidents of 'break binding', a technical snag due to faulty application of brakes was another growing concern for the running staff. We have also said that the communication equipment available inside the trains as well as inside the tunnels, which are the last resort of the drivers in case of an emergency, are out of order in most cases. We have demanded that the signal and telecommunications departmental officers of the Metro make it absolutely sure that the emergency communication gears of the train system be made fully functional before any train is offered to the running staff for passenger carriage. The authorities have said that another meeting would be held after a month, wherein we would be assessing the developments assured by them in Monday's meeting," added Mukherjee. Chief Electrical Engineer, Metro Railway, Ranajit Mitra said: "Apart from their list of demands, the union members and the running staff had alleged that maintenance of the coaches were done in an alternate of nine months in place of the standard six months overhauling time. We have assured them that a monitoring unit would be constructed to keep a close watch on the issues discussed in the meeting."