Railways cool to child labour

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Railways cool to child labour

kolkata: in case a section of railway employees choose to engage in more profitable occupation or pastime, getting their own allotted work done by hiring children for a pittance, indian railways cannot care less. indeed, when a specific case was cited on tuesday, a railway spokesman blandly said that it was the job for the police and the railways could not possibly take any responsibility. the fact remains that at sealdah station alone, there are around 30 odd urchins, all in their teens, who are regularly deployed to work as coolies while the officially engaged porters do some other job on the side. the drm sealdah station, d.c. mitra claimed of having no information about such practice. now that you have informed us, we will conduct raids to find out the truth he said on tuesday. everyday, akash sheikh (12), shibu das (10), chotu mistry (11) and 30 other street children on the sealdah railway platforms, carry inhuman loads that the group-d staff of sealdah station refuses to. the children are regularly engaged in the duty of the porters to carry instrument boxes to and fro the go-down to the guards compartment in trolleys. each of the lighter boxes fetch us re 1 and heavier ones rs 2. if we carry 12-15 boxes, it fetches about rs 25 to rs 30. this is quite handy for us, said akash, one of the urchins on the payroll of the railway staff. the railway staff are invisible during their duty hours and have a tacit understanding with the store-keeper in the guard-box store room and the person in-charge of receiving the boxes at the platform. we receive our payment from the store-keeper on duty chhotu said. duty of the person in-charge of receiving the boxes is to ensure that these are reached their proper destination in the guards compartment of the train. reaching the boxes are important, otherwise, the railway porter will be summoned. he, in his own interest, want to ensure that the duty is done properly said a railway official. this practice is more rampant late in the afternoon and in the evenings, claimed rani, mother of akash. she, along with many other parents of these street children feel that things have deteriorated further due to closure of cini-asha. before closure of this school, these children used to attend the school in the evening. now they are free in the evenings and do not study anymore she said. with this arrangement, everybody seems happy. what is the harm if the children earn some money which they need. anyway, they never go to schools and spend the day loitering, said one of the railway porters. according to many railway executives, who did not want to be quoted for obvious reasons, as the porters are never available and the children are in the platform premises, they are delegated the job of carrying guard boxes. the guard-box go-down is in platform number six. from there, these equipment boxes have to be transported to and from the guards compartment in all long distant trains.