Baggage of life weighs down porters

Amarjot Kaur
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, December 14

In their fiery-red uniforms, with a copper tag fastened around their arm, porters (coolies) at the Chandigarh railway station clock a 12-hour shift to ferry the luggage of passengers.

While the Union Budget of 2017 had brought a ray of hope for them with the government looking to bring them under the social security net provided by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), a year after Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu rechristened them as ‘sahayaks’ (instead of coolie—a colonial-era racist slur), they still are a weighed-down lot. Neither do the city station porters have a proper restroom nor a stable earning.

A total of 40, they divvy up in two teams of 20 each. Pulling a three-tyred pushcart to the cab, Krishan Kumar, 25, has no place to keep his belongings. “Just about two months ago, thousands of coolies gathered at the Jantar Mantar in Delhi, asking for a stable salary and employment under Category D. I went there too. But here, we don’t even have a restroom,” he says. Gathered around him, Uday Pratap, Radhey Sham, Satpal, Jay Prakash, Rakesh and Rajesh guide this correspondent to a parking lot on the left side of the station’s entrance, where a shanty awaited us.

Dark and dingy, there’s not a single bulb in the room. The door was missing too. A wooden box-cum-bed is plonked along one of the walls of the small, square-shaped room, the length and breadth of which would measure up to 10 or 12 feet. As Uday opens the box, stacked in which are piles bricks, he says, “We can’t even leave our food here. Dogs come and eat it. This room has only one bed for 40 coolies, and the blanket has been brought by us too. The absence of a door makes it hard for us to stay warm, especially at night.”

Though the union leader, Pardhan Vijay, has written to the authorities concerned regarding their issues several times, as told by the porters, their demands remain unaddressed. “It’s been three or four years since we have been here in this room. Also, the contract for the parking lot expired and now no one cleans it or charges any money for parking here. I have been sweeping the floor myself,” Satpal says.

Most porters are only breadwinners in their family. Asking for a Category D employment, Sunil Dutt says, “I have children to feed and we only end up making between Rs 300 and Rs 500 on a good day. We need a stable salary. My father was a coolie at this railway station in 1950s and I got his billa (the numbered copper tag) transferred in my name.” Not just Dutt, but most coolies here have inherited their father’s profession.

When contacted, railway station Director Hari Deep Singh said, “None of these issues has been brought to my notice. Once they are, I shall definitely look into the matter.”