IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation) is going to terminate the services of over 500 catering supervisors. IRCTC believes that hospitality supervisors are not required in the present circumstance of COVID-19 and were looking to terminate the services of more than 500 railway hospitality supervisors. However, the corporation has now decided to withhold the order until any further notice. According to the information from a PTI report, the contracts of most of these workers are about to get over by this year-end.
In 2018 around 560 hospitality supervisors were hired by IRCTC to maintain a quality check on contractors assigned to cater food in trains that are equipped with pantries. These supervisors were given the work to monitor onboard pantry car operations of the railways, which includes looking after the food preparation, quality inspection of food items, handling complaints and queries of passengers, and to ensure that food charges taken from passengers by the catering service providers are according to prices notified by Indian Railways.
The zonal offices were informed by IRCTC on June 25th that under the present circumstances, there was no requirement for these contractual workers and that they be given a notice of one month and their contracts terminated. However, Siddharth Singh spokesperson of IRCTC said that the organization is rethinking the matter. He added that the corporation is considering if it can reconsider the decision and certain measures will be taken in this regard. However, it was clearly stated in the report that for those who have been handed termination letters already, it is the final decision and there is no turning back.
IRCTC had to take this decision during the pandemic as there are very few train services happening only in case of emergency travels amid COVID-19. The catering service has stopped for now, and there is no work as of now for the supervisors. Above this currently, IRCTC is not getting any revenue and they cannot afford to pay the salary to these catering supervisors. These employees have sought help from Railway Minister Piyush Goyal to intervene in this issue. Many employees whose contracts were terminated got their termination letters on 26th June. In a letter to IRCTC, the employees said that they were willing to take a 5% to 15% pay cut, but appealed that they not be terminated. The employees also stated in the letter that they played a major role in increasing the revenue of IRCTC.
