Who ask for us, nowadays?

Zakir Hussain
Dimapur | November 2 

The demand for ‘coolie’ in Dimapur Railway Station, is declining these days. “Who asks for us, nowadays?” instantly replies a coolie, to a query on how much they manage to earn. They are distinct by the red shirts and a piece of cloth tied around their heads.

Ever ready to offer their services, the coolies, who wait at platforms of trains stations, are being ‘replaced’ by easy carry-bags, rock-size bags, wheeled suitcases and so on. “We manage to earn around Rs. 2,000 in a month and sometimes even lesser than it,” said Jogi Shah, who is 55 years old and one of the oldest licensed porters at Dimapur station.

For porters, life is not easy as they start work from 5:00 in the morning and stay up till late afternoon, working or to find work. “We remain awake for most of the time and rush in and out of the station to find some work,” said Ram Babu, another porter at the station. He added that “despite the low demand, porters continue to function as per the trains or the railway timetable”.

“We guide passengers about the right train and the right platform,” said Babu,. “But we do not have any union or association to highlight our grievances” he added.  “But often porters are paid less for their services; now, we depend less on passenger trains but more on good trains,” Ram Babu explained.
They  do not have proper beds for sleeping, in their housings at the station, the porters pointed out further. “We do not have even toilet facilities,” informed the porters. Many porters suffer from fatigue due to the long hours of ‘standing or walking and carrying heavy loads’. These have taken toll on their health. Some of them have even fallen addicted to banned substances.

It is not surprising that porters of Dimapur Railway Station were thrilled when Union Minister for Railways Lalu Prasad Yadav announced ‘in his budget speech’ and ‘in his speech at Dimapur’ as well that they would be engaged as ‘gang-men’. As gang-men they would be Class IV Central Government employees earning a safe income of Rs 7,000-8,000 in a month.

But their dream dampened, since many of them turned out to be ineligible as they were illiterate, old or medically unfit. “Out of 81 licensed railway porters in Dimapur Railway Station, only 33 get selected for the job of gang-men,” said Ram Babu.

Expressing his opinion, Babu demanded that young porters be given some training to help them meet the requirements for the post of gang-man. “A lot of old people continue working as coolies though their health doesn’t permit. Therefore, the children of such persons be given jobs in the railways,” he opined. However, Jogi Shah said their licenses should be transferred to their children so that their children would be able to apply for the job of gang-men.

“The 33 porters who got the job are presently working at the railway construction site at Silchar in Assam,” said Ram Babu to a query where the porters were working, adding “During the time of submitting the application forms for the job, he along with his 20 odd porters were out of station so they have applied for the job recently and waiting for the response from the NFR Maligaon.

Jogi Shah said that the porters were used for loading goods in trains, cleaning the stations and removing human waste from the tracks earlier. But, he added that “unfortunately, today, most of these jobs are contracted out.”