Protest against railway privatisation

Protest against railway privatisation

The central government has decided, and issued orders, to hand over the running of trains on 109 pairs of routes of the Indian Railways to private companies. For this it has invited expressions of interest from Indian and foreign firms, issuing a notification asking them to submit a Request for Qualification (RFQ). The CITU state secretariat appeals to all trade unions and workers to raise their protest against the move to privatise the Indian Railways, the pride of the country.

The Modi government is taking this anti-national step while the country is under lockdown against the spread of Covid-19. Private monopolies are being given 109 pairs of trains to run in 12 clusters. The drivers and guards on these trains will be railway employees; the private companies can appoint the other staff, and all other functions will be under the private company's control.

The government had already decided to hand over railway stations and the valuable land attached to them to private companies. Now train services are being privatised too.

This step has been taken ignoring the protests raised by political parties and trade unions against privatisation. We appeal to workers to gather all their strength and line up against this treasonous move.

Elamaram Kareem
General Secretary