The government has announced that 11,72,240 non-gazetted railway employees will receive a Productivity Linked Bonus (PLB) in recognition of “excellent performance,” according to a press statement released on Thursday, October 03, 2024.
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How much will eligible railway employees be receiving from this year’s PLB?
The employees of various categories will receive PLB for 78 days worth of wages, worth a grand overall total of ₹2,028.57 crore “as an incentive to motivate the railway employees for working towards improvement in the performance of the Railways.”
The maximum amount an eligible railway employee can get, depending on their salary is ₹17,951, according to the statement.
This year’s PLB was also calculated on the basis of the seventh pay commission after Sarvjeet Singh, the National General Secretary of Indian Railways Employee Federation (IREF) made an appeal last month to Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw asking for the shift from calculating the PLB based on the sixth pay commission to the seventh.
The minimum railway salary in the sixth pay commission was ₹7,000, while it is ₹18,000 for the seventh pay commission.
Though the seventh pay commission was implemented for railway employees from 2016 itself, the calculation of PLB was done using the sixth pay commission till last year.
Which railway employees are eligible for this year’s PLB?
The eligible employee categories include staff like Track maintainers, Loco Pilots, Train Managers (Guards), Station Masters, Supervisors, Technicians, Technician Helpers, Pointsman, Ministerial staff and other Group C staff.
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Payment of PLB to eligible railway employees is made each year before the Durga Puja/ Dusshera holidays.
How did the performance of Indian railways grow?
The government stated that many factors including improvement in infrastructure due to the infusion of record capex by the government, efficiency in operations and better technology contributed to the performance, with the railways loading a record cargo of 1,588 million tonnes and carrying nearly 6.7 billion passengers.
During last year’s October, 11,07,346 railway employees also got a PLB worth ₹1,968.87 crore in total, after the railways recorded cargo of 1,509 million tonnes and carried nearly 6.5 billion passengers.
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