For the twelfth year in succession, eligible employees of the Indian Railways will receive their productivity-linked bonus (PLB), which is equal to 78 days’ pay.
More than 11 lakh non-gazetted employees of the Indian Railways are expected to get about Rs 17,951 each, as the ceiling for calculating wage for PLB is set at Rs 7,000 per month.
The railway unions, however, were reportedly expecting a higher sum as bonus this time, to keep the employees motivated.
Considering that the Indian Railways managed to complete at least 1,418 million tonnes of freight loading in 2021-22, the contribution of the employees towards the same cannot be denied. And therefore, the unions feel the employees deserve an enhanced bonus.
With the festival season here, the employees hope that they will receive a higher bonus this year, before Dussehra.
The National Federation of Indian Railwaymen (NFIR) highlights the fact that there were more than two lakh posts lying vacant in the Indian Railways, which only put additional work pressure and load on the existing employees. Therefore, the employees deserve to be rewarded for taking on this extra work, which helped the Railways gain more revenue.
The 78-day pay was proposed by the Railway Board and the Centre is expected to approve the same any time now.
This PLB for the financial year 2021-22 will benefit about 1.156 million non-gazetted railway staff, putting an extra burden of about Rs 2,000 crore in terms of expenses.
