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CHAPTER IX,

control over the non-pensionable subordinate establishment in matters
of appointment, promotions, dismissals, leave, etc. In the case of
company-managed railways, the agents are primarily responsible to
their respective Boards of Directors, who enjoy extensive powers in
administrative questions. In financial matters their powers are on a
par with those exercised by the agents of state-managed railways and
the budget demands of company-managed lines are subject to scrutiny
and approval by the Railway Board. In establishment and labour
questions, the Railway Board states it is not in a position to enforce
its policy on the company-managed railways. It can suggest reforms
and improvements, but the men employed on such railways are the
servants of the companies concerned and, while it has been the
custom for company-managed railways to give due consideration
bo the suggestions of the Railway Board, there has been no
uniformity of practice in the treatment of labour matters. There
are factors peculiar to each railway which have an important
bearing on the conditions of labour pertaining to that particular
line. Among these are the length of the railway, the territories
through which it passes, the climatic, ethnological and other
features peculiar to those territories the intellectual and industrial
progress made by the people living therein, the scope such progress
affords for the satisfactory recruitment of railway labour and the other
avenues of employment open to labour. Not less important are variations
 in the nature and extent of the traffic available and in the earning
capacity of one railway as compared with another. As an offset to these
factors may be placed the natural tendency for each railway to be
affected by any scheme of improvement in conditions on an adjacent
line, a tendency strengthened by the workmen’s associations which are
not slow to claim, and press for, the extension of similar schemes to
their railway. The general working policy of the Railway Board, as a
central controlling body representing the Government of India, acts
as a co-ordinating force, while the Indian Railway Conference Association,
 to which we refer later, also makes its influence felt when labour
questions affecting more than one railway are under concideration.

Recruitment of Labour.

We now proceed to a detailed examination of the conditions
obtaining on Indian railways and of the problems to which they give rise.
The supply of labour available locally is generally in excess of requirements,
 except in outlying areas where the local supply is supplemented
by immigrants from distant parts. Temporary labour required for the
construction of new lines or on large open-line works is usually recruited
locally or imported by contractors to whom such works are let out on
contract. These workers, however, form only a small proportion
of the great body of labour employed on railways. The main classes
of employees engaged in the maintenance and running of railways
may be divided into three groups, namely :—(1) labour employed in the
engineering department on the maintenance of the permanent way ;