The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Committed to rail connections, not craving for big pay

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Tuesday, Jul 15, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Committed to rail connections, not craving for big pay

Shyam Ranganathan

Centre for Railway Information Systems does not lose employees to private firms, offering them instead a chance to learn more

“We get to handle much more complexity in the CRIS than we would in the industry”
Attrition rate is only one every few months despite demand for manpower from private firms

CHENNAI: Information technology would seem the most visible sector in Chennai today, but not for those who work out of a small set of offices in the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) in the Moore Market Complex building.

And, although the industry outside is much more remunerative, the small team of 46 persons seems happy to stay. In particular, the network engineers who manage the connections with all the stations in Southern Railway and South-Western Railway are happy about the work they get to do.

“We get to handle much more complexity in the CRIS than we would in the industry. Our team of 5 network engineers handles 90 routers in Southern Railway. And, within the next few months, we will also have to manage 200 routers that are being commissioned for South-Western Railway,” says E. Sagayaraj, who shifted from a private company two years ago.

His friend from Delhi, Anuj Kumar Gupta, and his team handles even more—4,000 routers are handled by the CRIS Delhi office. And he agrees with Sagayaraj: the complexity they handle helps them learn more than what they would in the industry.

And the result is seen in the fact that the attrition rate is only one every few months despite the constant demand for skilled manpower from the private sector. One reason is the fact that many employees sign a bond to stay for a few years, and enjoy fast-track promotions. But, an important reason for the low attrition is the idealism of the employees under him, says T. Venkata Subramanian, General Manager, CRIS. “They like solving difficult problems, and there is tremendous scope for facing challenges in a vast network like the Railways,” he says, listing those who have been with the CRIS for five years and even a decade.

Less pressure

There is also less of a pressure-cooker atmosphere in the workplace. “We are ready to be flexible with our employees. In fact, we are forced to be so, as we cannot match the pay of the IT industry, which is ready to gobble up our wards,” Mr. Venkata Subramanian says, laughing.

He remembers an employee taking over maternity leave for five months, which would be difficult outside, and another phoning him in the morning to say a strike in the city would mean she could not come to work that day. As long as there is no pressing work on a particular day, there is no need to push people, he says.

Easy schedule

This easy schedule does not mean less work. In fact, the CRIS has regularly come up with applications such as the recent Crew Management System and the Control Office Application to automate the running of the Railways. But there are more challenges, as many parts of the actual operations are still done manually.

The work already completed represents only an important first step.

The Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration on April 21, and the IBM Beacon and Top Star Awards on May 1, the CRIS received this year, are the first signs of wider recognition.

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