Jobless Apprentice Youth raised voice, protested through Mumbai Rail Roko andolan

Mumbai : On Tuesday morning, Mumbai’s local train commuters woke up to the furious frustration of India’s jobless youth, as nearly 3,000 apprentices training with the Indian Railways staged a four-hour rail roko agitation between Dadar and Matunga stations. Protesters blocked the city’s Central line train services from 7 am to 11am, paralyzing the rush-hour commute for thousands of Mumbai residents heading to work, school or college. Some of the protesters threw stones at the police, who had to use lathis to disperse the demonstrators.

The protesters, members of the All India Act Apprentice Association, had travelled from across Maharashtra, Bihar, Punjab and other states to demand permanent jobs with the Indian Railways. Before 2014, they claim, these technical jobs were granted to most trainees who successfully completed the railway apprenticeship programme set up under the central Apprentices Act, 1961.

“But now the Railways is hardly giving any jobs to its apprentices, and many of us have been sitting unemployed for three or four years even though we have the skills to do railway jobs,” said Santosh Kumar, one of the many protesters who travelled from Bihar to participate in Tuesday’s rail roko.

In a statement released during the protest in Mumbai on Tuesday, Central Railway emphasized this. “They are given only training for a specified period to improve their skills and experience of having worked in the field,” the statement said. “However, Ministry of Railways has taken a decision and reserved 20% of the seats filled through direct recruitment.” It encouraged protesting apprentices to apply for the latest round of recruitments before March 31.

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal also issued a statement to point out that Indian Railways is in the midst of a large-scale recruitment drive, with nearly 90,000 jobs on offer this year. “We have already reserved 20% posts for ‘Course Completed Act Apprentices’, who were engaged in railway establishments under the Apprenticeship Act,” Goyal said.

‘Not getting jobs we are qualified for’

The decision to reserve 20% of technical railway jobs for trainees who complete their apprenticeships was made through a government notification in June 2016. Protesting apprentices, however, have demanded the removal of this 20% quota.

“Before this quota was introduced, getting jobs in the Railways was almost a guarantee,” said Ajmer Singh, a 24-yar-old from Kapurthala, Punjab, who has had no job since his apprenticeship ended in 2014. “But if they now give jobs to only 20% of the apprentices, where will the rest of the 80% go?”

Contrary to assumptions of the Railway Ministry, protesters claimed that the skills they have learned at the Railways apprenticeship programmes were not always applicable to jobs in other industries, narrowing their employment prospects if they fail to land a Railways’ job.

“When we go outside to look for jobs, and mention that our past experience is of fitting locomotive parts or making railway signals, they don’t give us work,” said Pravin Sonawane, a 2015 batch apprentice from Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district who learnt how to be a fitter. “If the Railways don’t have jobs to give us, then why do they have such a big apprenticeship programme? And how were they able to give jobs to most apprentices earlier?”