Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1850495947

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-233603

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: His Majesty's Stationery Off.

Year of publication:: 1931

Scope:: xviii, 580 S.; graph. Darst., Kt.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter IX. - Railways

Collection:: Economics Books

138 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 varia- tions 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 Associa- tion, 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 require- ments, 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 ;

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