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They thrive on your load
Carrying loads for livelihood. Photo: K.R. Deepak.
Guess who comes to see you off and receive you on your arrival at the railway station (clue: gimme red). If you have guessed `porter' or `coolie' you have hit the target.
Yes, they are the ones on whose shoulders and head rest your bag and baggage, at the start or end of your train journey.
It would be interesting to learn that there are 300 porters in Visakhapatnam railway station. They operate in three shifts of 100 each, and these 100 coolies equally divide themselves to attend on passengers and at the parcel section.
Even though the rates to be charged for the headload are fixed at Rs.8 up to 40 kg., the passengers are fleeced Rs.30 or so. They
do go for the kill occasionally, depending on how helpless a passenger or a parcel claimant is. If it is a woman with three kids and a heavy luggage or an elderly couple or someone new to the city, it will be a field day for the man in red. It will be good if the station authorities announce periodically the porterage rates for the benefit of passengers.
Another interesting fact is that all the earnings of the 50 coolies are pooled and shared equally by all and they have built-in checks to ensure that nobody suppresses their daily earnings. Anybody caught on the wrong foot is slapped a stiff fine as a deterrent.
Employment of porters continues on a hereditary basis as the badge is handed over to the descendant or the next of kin.
According to inside sources, badges are being sold to outsiders at a hefty price ranging from Rs.50,000 to Rs.1 lakh. The Railway authorities should take action to check this malpractice.
Apart from making money by selling their licences, being quasi-Railway employees, the coolies continue to enjoy benefits like yearly complimentary pass for self and PTO at one-third the fare for self and spouse.
The porters complain that they are being given only out-patient status in Railway hospitals. Another grievance is over the daily wage rate. ''While we are paid Rs.65 a day at the parcel section in Vizag, our counterparts are paid Rs.69 at Vizianagaram and Rs.179 at Nizamabad.
The coolies are concerned about the Railways' plans to privatise porterage and remove the badge system. However, the porters union has temporarily thwarted the privatisation plans by obtaining a stay order from the court. The porters started off as a private union and continued so till 1952 when it was handed over to the Waltair Division.
Nageswara Rao, who has put in 12 years of service at the Visakhapatnam station, says that he had inherited the badge from his ailing father and that the monthly income he earns is barely sufficient to feed his family and his aged parents.
Another coolie, Narasimhulu, who stays at the Burma Camp, has been in this job since 37 years. ''Getting a job three decades ago was a cake walk and I could enrol myself easily, unlike the hassles of submitting municipal/police/MRO certificates prevalent now,'' he recalls, and is worried about his son's future as securing a job is quite a daunting task these days.
These porters enjoy being in the thick of things and have a strong sense of affinity. In a jiffy, they go to the rescue of their comrades in distress, irrespective of who is on the wrong side.
Well, it is the same porters who come to assist you in your efforts to secure a berth. Their humane side came to light during the Bhuj earthquake a couple of years ago, when the porters of Ahmedabad station organised free kitchens and also joined the rescue operations and assisted the medical personnel, thereby earning the epithet, 'Florence Nightingales in Red'.
P.B
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