170 CHAPTER X.

bodies to be set up. As we believe it essential to the working of
conciliation machinery that meetings should be held at regular intervals
and that, wherever possible, specified time limits should be fixed for
dealing with questions at each stage, we recommend that these points
should receive particular attention when the constitution of the machinery
 1s under consideration.

Contractors.

We have dealt elsewhere in this report with matters which
affect railway employees in common with other industrial workers and
do not propose to refer to them here, except in so far as they have a
special bearing on railway conditions. Some work is given out on contract,
 and in certain branches of railway service this cannot be avoided.
We recommend substituting departmental for contract labour, wherever
practicable. There are departments in which work done under
contract might be materially reduced. In the coramercial department
it is particularly inadvisable that station masters or other railway
officers should be given contracts for loading and unloading goods or for
the supply of porters. Equally unsatisfactory is the system of employing
contractors as cashiers and of allowing them and their pay clerks to
take the place of departmental staff in paying wages to workers.
Evictions.

We have dealt in a later chapter with the question of housing,
Here we need only refer to one phase to which our attention was drawn,
namely, that of eviction. The scarcity of housing adds to the difficulties
 facing railways when it becomes necessary t0 serve notices of eviction
upon workers who have been discharged or who have ceased attending
to their duties. Under the Indian Railways Act, an administration
can apply to a magistrate, but we are informed that it is only on rare
occasions that recourse has been had to legal proceedings for eviction of
a railway servant. We feel sure this power will be resorted to only after
giving due regard to all the circumstances,
Health and Welfare.
A separate chapter is given to the health of industrial workers and
there is no need to stress here the fact that the preservation of the health
of the staff and the prevention of epidemic diseases in railway settlements
have a very important bearing on the efficient and economic working of
railways. In recent years the Railway Board and the administrations
have been giving special attention to improvement of medical and sanitary
arrangements. Figures have been supplied showing that the twelve
Class I railways give grants for health and welfare purposes amount-Ing
 to a crore of rupees annually, this amount being taken wholly from
revenue, with the exception of about Rs. 6 lakhs from fine funds.
Almost 509%, of this expenditure is devoted to medical relief and more
than 259, to sanitation ; during the last six years the cost of medical
relief has increased by 30%. We are in entire agreement with the Railwav
 Board as to the advantaces of having on each raillwav a whole-time