Indian Railways contemplating deduction in overtime, travel allowances: Report

The COVID-19 induced lockdown in the country has hit the Indian Railways hard. In a bid to cover up the losses, the railway ministry is contemplating to slash the allowances given to its employees.

According to reports, there is going to be a 50 per cent deduction in the overtime of Indian Railways allowances including Indian Railways travel allowances.

The railway ministry has started to make a move in this regard and a final decision is likely to be taken soon.

This is not the first time that such reports have emerged. Earlier in August, there were speculations that the Indian Railways is mulling to cease the salaries and pension of employees for the year 2020-21.

However, the Indian Railways dismissed the reports. Taking to the social networking site Twitter, it said that there was no such proposal and the reports were completely false and baseless. The central government confirmed that all salaries and pensions would continue to be released as usual.

The rumours surfaced in view of the COVID-19 Lockdown. It was believed that the Indian Railways suffered huge losses during this period and was therefore contemplating slashing salaries of railway employees.

The ministry had earlier sought the intervention of the finance ministry to meet its pension expenditure of Rs 53,000 crores for the year 2020-21.

About 13 lakh people are employed with the Indian Railways, while the number of pension seekers is close to 15 lakh.

Source : DNA India