Around 1952 employees of the Indian Railways died on duty in the pandemic and almost 1000 are getting infected on a daily basis, a senior officer said on Monday.
The Railways is one of the largest employers with 13 lakh employees in the world.
“Railways is not different from any other state or territory and we are also getting COVID cases. We are in the business of transport and have to move freight and people. Around 1,000 (COVID) cases are reported daily,” Railway Board Chairman Suneet Sharma said to Indian express.
“We have our hospitals, we have augmented the number of beds, we have built oxygen plants in rail hospitals. We take care of our staff. As of now, we have 4,000 beds occupied by staff and their families. Our effort is to see that they recover quickly. As of yesterday, 1,952 rail employees have died due to COVID-19 since March last year,” he added.
The All India Railwaymen’s Federation, a rail union, had written to Railway Minister Piyush Goyal demanding compensation.
The letter says the men deserved Rs 50 lakh as compensation, same as that announced for frontline workers and not Rs 25 lakh which is paid to them.
