Railway union seeks rollback of pension cuts, refund of recovered amounts

The South Central Railway Employees' Sangh (SCRES) has urged railway authorities to review instances where pensions were revised downward and recoveries ordered from retired employees, and to refund the amounts already recovered while restoring the original pension.

In a press release issued on Sunday, SCRES General Secretary M. Raghavaiah described the downward revisions and the recovery of alleged excess payments detected after pension sanction as arbitrary and unjustified. He argued that zonal railways lack the authority to order such recoveries or to direct banks to reduce pension payments.

Citing Supreme Court judgments, Mr. Raghavaiah said the recovery of excess payments from retired Group 'C' and Group 'D' employees has been held to be impermissible in law. He maintained that recovering excess or erroneous payments from retired employees, or from those due to retire within a year of the recovery order, is legally untenable.

He also referred to a case involving an appointment on compassionate grounds, in which a woman employee was allegedly reverted to a lower post for not securing 60% marks in graduation, despite no such condition being prescribed.

According to Mr. Raghavaiah, excess payments that cannot be recovered should be processed for a formal waiver through the Department of Expenditure in the Ministry of Finance rather than recovered from employees. He further pointed out that under the Railway Services (Pension) Rules, a pension once sanctioned cannot ordinarily be revised to the disadvantage of the pensioner. If a clerical error is detected after two years, the matter should be referred to the Railway Board for a decision on whether such a revision is warranted, he said, according to media coordinator V. Sripati Sharma.

Separately, the Suburban Train Travellers Association appealed to South Central Railway to introduce additional MMTS services between Bolarum and Secunderabad during peak hours to ease commuter difficulties. The association noted that roads leading to Secunderabad are witnessing severe traffic congestion because of ongoing road underbridge works at Neredmet and Safilguda, as well as road-laying and repair work on AOC Road. Association secretary Noor suggested that additional MMTS services be operated during peak periods from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. to benefit students, office-goers and other commuters.