Amritsar railway station grapples with staff crunch

Many departments of the railways at the Amritsar station are grappling with staff shortage, hampering train operations. The local station is battling a shortage of officers and staff due to which even the movement of trains is getting affected. The posts of five station masters (SMs) have been lying vacant for the past three months and the washing line also has to manage with inadequate staff.

Five out of 22 posts of station masters (SM) fell vacant at the station about three months ago, bringing down their number to 17. In this scenario, the railway administration prolonged the shift of SMs from 8 hours to 12 hours.

Around 50 employees from the washing line were deployed at other places, facing a severe staff shortage, about two months ago.

Consequently, several trains, especially those connecting the holy city with peripheral towns like Dera Baba Nanak, Khemkaran, Attari and others are getting delayed daily. The daily passengers using these trains are facing extreme difficulties due to the delay in plying of these trains. Baljit Singh, a resident of Khemkaran, said he comes to Mandi to work as a daily wager. However, delay in train operations forced him to shift to the costly bus service.