Railways to return porter licences to 1,231 gangmen

Railway porters are sitting with relax mood in a winter morning at Bhubaneswar railway station when train services are not so frequent on Thursday morning. Photo: Ashoke Chakrabarty

After serving as railway employees for about a year, over 1000 gangmen will become porters again.

Railways will return porter licences to 1,231 gangmen cross the country, a senior Railway Ministry official said, adding “zonal railways have been instructed to do the needful.”

The railway budget 2008-09 had provided an opportunity to porters to be appointed as gangmen as a one-time measure following which 21,308 porters were appointed as gangmen.

A railway gangman earns about Rs 10,000 a month.

However, after becoming gangmen, some of them wanted to revert back to their previous jobs and made representation to Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee who agreed.

It has been decided that as a one-time measure, all those porters, who have been appointed as gangmen and wanting to revert back to their old jobs, will be allowed to do so at the same place where they were working before subject to the condition that there is need for porters at the same station, said the official.

Currently, railways have a requirement of 17,100 licensed porters across the country.