Railway's Pahartali workshop plagued by manpower crisis

Despite infrastructure improvements in the last two years, the Carriage and Wagon Workshop of Bangladesh Railway's East Zone has been tottering with less than half of its required manpower for more than a decade now, putting its workers health and safety at risk.

With more and more skilled labourers retiring, both officials and workers of the country's most vital rail zone -- covering Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet divisions -- are worried about its operations.

The workshop was established on 35 acres of land in Pahartali of Chattogram in 1947. At present, the workshop has 871 workers but it requires 1,776 workers to carry out routine maintenance of some 4,000 freight train wagons and 935 coaches, according to sources.

The workshop, also known as Pahartali Workshop, has only 30 officials against 71 posts.

Engineer  Saiful Islam, works manager of the workshop, said, “I joined the workshop in September 2017 and since then the highest attendance recorded in a day is 680.”

The manpower shortage was created when some 10,000 railway employees, including 600 from the Pahartali Workshop, went on retirement under voluntary retirement schemes -- or golden handshake -- in 1993, informed Hazrat Ali, assistant administrative officer of the workshop.

After a long period, 110 workers were recruited in 2005 and 200 Khalasis (helpers) were recruited in 2015, he added.

“When skilled labourers retire, their places are not being filled. It takes a worker at least four years to be competent. On the other hand, the workers often prefer early retirement, within some 10 to 15 years of their service, as the work stress exhausts them badly,” he added.

As many as 140 workers are set to retire this year while more carriages and bogies will be added in the upcoming fiscal year.

So, if recruitment is not started very soon, the crisis of skilled workers would take a serious turn and badly affect the workshop's productivity, Ali added.

With this insufficient manpower, the workshop is taking care of three units (each unit comprising two carriages) per day, whereas it is able to repair only 2.4 units on an average daily. Besides maintenance, the workshop makes over a thousand small parts of railway coaches and freight train wagons.

“Despite being short-staffed, we are meeting targets on time. That has been possible only because our staff works overtime on a regular basis to get the job done,” said FM Mohiuddin, divisional superintendent of the workshop.

As a result, the workers are overworked, stressed and exhausted. High levels of stress have made them susceptible to injuries and workplace accidents, he added.

During the two Eid seasons, the workload increases terribly and the staff have to work 11 to 12 hours a day.

The workshop had to repair 123 bogies (chassis that carries the train's wheelset) before this Eid-ul-Fitr, while 103 bogies were repaired before Eid-ul-Azha, Mohiuddin said, adding, “In both cases, we got only two months.”

Seeking anonymity, a worker told this correspondent, “I have been working here for over 10 years. Makes me wonder how I have survived the insane workload all these years.”

“The work stress takes away everything from our lives. We don't have any social life. Our work is quite risky too. I have lost a finger in an accident, and have become chronically fatigued over time”, said another worker, also wishing anonymity.

When asked about the accidents, the works manager admitted that everyday at least one worker suffers some sort of injury while working at the workshop. The number goes higher during Eid seasons.

He, however, mentioned that the workshop has adequate safety gears, including helmets, gloves, boots and goggles.

“The workers have become habituated to working without safety gears, and are reluctant to use them; they say when they work with the heavy safety gears on, they cannot give their 100 percent, which results in low productivity.”

“As we are always under work pressure, we cannot even force them to wear safety gears even though we know it's risky,” Saiful admitted.

Since 2016, the workshop has witnessed a number of developments during different phases of a government project titled “Improvement of Pahartali Workshop”.

Most of the antiquated machineries have been replaced with modern equipment; shabby infrastructure has been developed while new sheds and rail tracks have been built. The almost Tk 200 crore-project will be completed next year.

“Till 2015, some 500 coaches remained unattended annually, but we have been fulfilling all our targets since 2016”, Saiful added.

“We have full logistics support now. By the next year, we can increase our capacity to six units per day, only if we get the required manpower”, he added.

Several letters have been sent describing the manpower crisis to the higher authorities on different occasions, said divisional superintendent FM Mohiuddin.

“Bangladesh Railway is responsible for the overall recruitment. Even in our last monthly meeting, we proposed a policy under which workshop authorities would be able to directly recruit skilled workers”, he added.

When contacted, General Manager of Bangladesh Railway's East Zone, Syed Faruk Ahmed said he was aware of the manpower crunch.

A recruitment drive is about to start soon, he said but could not give any further details.