Railway station masters on 48-hour trade union action

Station Masters’ Union says its members have commenced a token strike this evening (July 23), in protest of the train ticket fare revision. 

Accordingly, the station masters will refrain from issuing normal railway tickets for a period of 48 hours effective from 6.00 p.m. today. 

Earlier today, the Railway Department announced that the increased train ticket fares are effective from today. However, the station masters, in response, said they would continue to sell tickets at old prices.

In a letter directed to the General Manager of Railways, the Station Masters’ Union said, the Railway Department has continuously disregarded the requests to rectify the discrepancies in railway fare revision identified by them.

According to the statement, the station masters pointed out the following issues:

• The station masters were not given adequate time to look into the accuracy of the methodology used for railway fare revision.

• The AF174 application, which is displayed to the passengers to inform them of the railway fare revision, has not been issued to the train stations.

• Although, the revision of ticket fares should be displayed at train stations in all Sinhala, Tamil and English, pursuant to the official language policy of the country, it has been displayed only in the English language.

• The tickets issued for normal trains are higher in price than that of the intercity trains.

• Although it was announced that the ticket fares went up by 60%, for some destinations, the price of a ticket has been increased by 120%.

• The station masters, who are engaged in issuing tickets to the passengers, have not been informed or called for a discussion on the ticket fare revision.

The station masters have warned that they would resort to continuous strike action if the aforementioned issues are not addressed by the authorities.