Railway porters, catering staff look forward to working again

Aman Sood
Tribune News Service
Patiala, November 23

With a glimmer of hope after a nine-month layoff, licensed porters and kiosk owners at railway stations now expect to make both ends meet as farmers have allowed train services to resume in and via Punjab.

Out of business ever since the lockdown in March and later after the farmer agitation, porters and railway caterers are hopeful of coming out of their financially harsh days.

An integral part of the railway station scene since the colonial times, porters have been the worst hit. “Last time, I saw a hundred rupee note was in January. Following the lockdown and trains being cancelled, I have been borrowing and eating into my limited resources,” says Bhanu Singh, a porter for past two decades. “This has been the worst year of my life when managing daily ration also became tough,” he adds.

When travel restrictions were imposed in March to check the spread of Covid, coolies were among the first to lose their livelihood as there were no passengers who needed them to carry their luggage. “Life has been tough. My wife now works as a maid in houses while my son is working at a local shop as a helper,” says Pritpal, another coolie.

“We have been surviving on chutney-roti or sometimes just on roti. I had to borrow money against my goats at my ancestral village but still, survival was tough,” Pritpal says. A similar situation was faced by kiosk owners or caterers selling tea and other eatables at railway platforms. What went against them was that though they work for the Railways, they are not exactly railway employees.

“We get some relaxation for travelling in trains but we do not receive salary from the Railways. Though the licence fee renewal was waived after March 31, work and money stopped coming. My shop has been closed since March and when I opened it for a few days, the farmers blocked train movement and again, I suffered losses,” says Mangat Rai, a kiosk owner at Patiala railway station.

There are around 20,000 coolies across the country. Of them, around 300 work at different stations of Punjab.