NEW DELHI, Jun 23 (UNI) In a major relief to serving and retiredRailway employees, the Union Cabinet today turned down arecommendation of the Expenditure Refor Commission (ERC) towithdraw the facility of travel passes to them.
"This (rail passes) age-old practice owes its existence to the arduous duties required to be performed by the employees engaged in the running of the trains 24 hours of the day," Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee said.
Briefing reporters on the deliberations of the Cabinet meeting, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the chair, Mukherjee said the government had preferred not to accept the ERC's recommendation, arguing, that the travel facility extended to Railway employees was a matter of service condition.
He said travel facility was a universally recognised privilege which is given to employees of transport organisations not only in the Indian Railways but in all such organisations throughout the world.
