People's Democracy

  National Railway Mazdoor Union Conducts

Massive Flood Relief Work

The National Railway Mazdoor Union (NRMU) has always had a sterling record in collecting and extending help and relief at the time of natural calamities. It has given substantial help of several lakhs of rupees in cash or kind at the time of the earthquakes in Maharashtra and Gujarat, the cyclone in Orissa, the tsunami in Tamil Nadu and the starvation deaths of children in Nandurbar.

With the unprecedented floods in Maharashtra, the NRMU immediately swung into action. It first sanctioned an amount of Rs 25 lakhs from its own funds for flood relief. It then launched a massive fund collection campaign among the people in the railway divisions that were relatively less affected by floods, viz. Bhusawal, Pune, Solapur and Nagpur. Over Rs 10 lakhs will be collected through this campaign, of which nearly Rs 3 lakhs have been collected in the Bhusawal division alone. It sanctioned an amount of Rs 25 lakhs from the large co-operative credit society that it runs, to be used as relief to the flood- affected railway employees by giving them Rs 1000 each as grant and Rs 5000 each as credit without interest.

For the last three weeks, NRMU general secretary P R Menon, president Y G Joshi and other office-bearers S K Bose, M R Tulaskar, Venu P Nair, Nandlal Swea and others have been touring the flood-affected areas of Mumbai as well as Thane, Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg districts (where the NRMU also won the elections to the Konkan Railway Employees Union a few months ago) and have been distributing flood relief in cash and kind not only to thousands of flood-affected railway employees but also to other affected families in their villages. At the same time, NRMU office-bearers have met the general manager of Central Railway and have submitted a memorandum demanding several measures in the way of flood relief.