FAISALABAD: A nationwide movement against the government's decision to privatize trains by the Railway Prem Union will be held on September 2 at Peshawar and September 8 at Multan Railway Station. Central Chairman Railway Prem Union Zia-ud-Din Ansari, President Sheikh Muhammad Anwar, General Secretary Khair Muhammad Tonio and others will address the meeting.

According to Central Secretary Information Khalid Mehmood Chaudhry, a delegation of railway employees from Faisalabad railway station will join the meetings. Khalid Mehmood Chaudhry said that the claimants of providing 10 million jobs instead of recruiting for 15,000 posts in the railways, they also eliminated them and made another 15,000 families unemployed.

The union delegation said that PTI should learn a lesson from the instructive outcome of PML-N and PPP. The ruling party, intoxicated with power and authority, should refrain from taking such steps that in the future the people will treat them as the PML-N and the PPP, so now is the time for them to reconsider their decisions. He said that people were forced to go on hunger strike due to inflation and unemployment.

He said that those who had promised to build five million houses had closed down the public employment factories and built anchorages. He said that Pakistan's largest defense and welfare agencies would not allow the railways to sacrifice railways to cover the government deficit. We will raise our voice for the rights of the workers everywhere in every forum. If the government does not accept the demands of the employees, then the railway workers from all over the country will turn to Islamabad. He said that the present and previous governments have been using this institution as their political interest and welfare institution and the railways were deprived of the financial support that the railways needed from the government.

He said that Railways, PIA, WAPDA were destroyed not by the workers but by corrupt governments. It is the government's job to rehabilitate loss-making institutions. If companies are in deficit, the solution is not to sell them.

He said that if those living in huts were deprived of their rights, they would not allow those living in bungalows to live comfortably. He demanded that instead of politically motivated recruitment in the railways, the quota of children of present service and retired employees should be fixed. Railway employees have not been paid TA, DA and graduation for the last several years while five per cent unjust deductions have been made from salaries in the name of construction funds. This should be stopped immediately.

He said that the package announced by the federal government for the employees who died on duty should be implemented immediately.-PR

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021