corporate welfare plan

[R. P. Sexena]

indian railways is in process of drawing a 10 year corporate welfare plan assigning total fund of about 5000 cr for improvement of staff Qrs & colonies .This fund may be inaddition to fund presently available under revenue & PH 51 STAFF QR ,PH 52 STAFF AMENITIES

It is just like SRSF plan of track where identified works were planned to complete in 5 yr period .Here period is 10 yr

Railways has to identify & get the works sanctioned to improve the colonies

This is right time for for paying little more attention to our colonies
In last few years number of staffs in Railways have come down from 16 lakh To 14 lakh & therefore it appears that more qrs need not be constructed .In fact in major colonies number of Qrs are either vacant or subletted .

old substandard qrs can be dismantled rather than stiching some improvement here & there .Area can be cleaned & improved environ mentally

More attention need to be paid in improving living conditions in present qrs & provide amenities necessary for good living

Railways board has directed that"Architects can be engaged to develop colony lay out & plan".if few qrs are coming in way of improving layout ,they can be dismantled & rebuilt as per new plan with modern amenities


we should make liberal use as this is rare opportunity.If this opportunity is lost ,colonies will never improve .More attention need to paid for places where Qrs are less ie 100 to 500 .Major colonies get regular attention & budget but small colonies are left on mercy of zonal contractor & IOW

[V. Natarajan]

To create a visual improvement, we have to improve our standards of construction for which we need certain corrections in works manual & type plans of quarters.

The works manual states white washing & colour washing for quarters at periodicity mentioned therein. Why can't we go in for plastic & acrylic paints which lasts longer and look better.

Similarly type plan of quarters shows wooden panelled doors & windows. We should modify them with modern materials like aluminium sliding windows with grills on Ground & first floors with granite, marble or cuddapah chowkats.

Similarly toilet doors can be of PVC/FRP doors with aluminim anodised fittings and with granite chowkats. We can go in for aluminium anodised louvers in toilets instead of RCC jali. We can use UPVC pipes instead of GI pipes. Similarly the material of down take pipe should also be improved as leaky pipes are the trade mark of government quarters and downtake pipes replaced do not last longer due to poor quality of PVC pipes being used.

We should also provide amenities like RCC shelves, lofts, wash basins, loft tanks, showers, geicers etc.. in Type-I & Type-II quarters as well. Tiling atleast up to 6" height should be allowed in bathrooms & WC. Iron fittings of doors and windows should be replaced by aluminium anodised or brass fittings. Our item of door in the SOR is also with Iron fittings.

Replacement of old conventional materials by same materials will not improve the visual looks. We need to mordenise as well.

[N.C. KARMALI]

We should use this opportunity to create dwelling environment and not standalone units. Now the real estate developers delvelop whole lot of peripheral ammenities like coomunity hall, swiming poll, gym, jogging lane, security, small market complex which are common expectations nowadays. We should develop such residential complexes rather than develop standalone unit without even fencing for security. If we want our workforce to feel part of the surging Indian economy and contribute for expected rise in GDP then we have to provide then the best.

For maintenance we have revamp our complete system. with the quality of available artisan our quality of maintenance is awful. A complete rethinking can be thought of in this area.

[S.P.S. Jain]

i am happy to note that the item which was introduced in MR's budget speech in Feb 2005 , when i was ME, has seen the light of the day. This was envisaged on the pattern of Safey plan. Engineers must see that the investment is made properly to bring positive improvements in the condotion of dwelling units and other related facilities like water supply , drainage , roads etc.
SPS Jain ,former ME