NEW DELHI: Indian Railways not only suffered in terms of earnings through passenger services during the pandemic, but also hugely in terms of ‘Staff Productivity (SP)’ during the financial year of 2019-20, even after having a strength of over 13 lakh employees. SP is measured in terms of volume of traffic handled per thousand employees.
As the Comptroller and Auditor General of India pointed out in its latest report 2020, railways witnessed a sharp decline in SP — from 714 million NTKM (Net Tonne Kilometre) in 2018-19 to 664 million in 2019-20. This means railways employees could not handle the sufficient volume of traffic during 2019-20, especially in services-included freight and passengers.
“It was not a good sign for us, but we have started increasing the volume of staff productivity, as a higher ratio indicates efficient transport of fright and passengers,” said a senior railway official, preferring anonymity. He added that railways has over 13 lakh employees spread over 10 major departments in 17 zones, six productions units and 68 divisions. The services are monitored and imropved through a system and this decline in staff productivity is being checked.
Of the 17 zones, East Coast Railway was the lone one that registered an impressive SP 1,847.33 million NTKM. Southern Railways registered the lowest of 248.9 million.
Pointing out the reason, the CAG has stated that deterioration in SP in 2019-20 as compared to the previous year was due to decline in freight carried and movement of passengers.
However, even amid this noticeable decline in railways SP, the Central government in the financial year 2019-20 provided Rs 2081.68 crore as productivity-linked bonus to its 11.5 lakh non-gazetted employees across India.