Southern Railway to teach regional language of each State to sta’ from other States
In a move aimed at bridging the communication gap between frontline sta¦ and local travellers, Southern Railway has decided to teach the regional language of every State to employees belonging to other States.
According to sources in the Railways, the move follows instances of sta¦ not being conversant in the local language resulting in arguments and complaints, particularly at ticket booking counters.
Realising that several employees posted in Tamil Nadu and Kerala hailed from other States and were not conversant in the local language, Southern Railway, in a circular, said that it was imperative that they acquired a working knowledge of Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu or Kannada to serve the public and the organisation better.
Training module Instructions were given to the heads of all departments, workshops, recruitment and training centres, and Divisional Railway Managers of Chennai, Tiruchi, Madurai, Salem, Thiruvananthapuram and Palakkad to develop a training module for basic learning of spoken regional languages (depending on the Divisions) for employees, and incorporate the same in the induction and refresher training programmes. Training institutes were told to create the content under the ‘Karmayogi’ platform.
In a communication, the Zonal Railways said that the use of the ‘Bhasha Sangam’ mobile application (developed by the Ministry of Education, Government of India, in collaboration with ‘MyGov’ India) may also be popularised for easy learning by employees hailing from other States.
The sources said that many ticket booking sta¦, travelling ticket examiners, catering sta¦ of the Indian e-learning
Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation, locopilots and other employees belonged to predominantly Hindi-speaking States and lacked a basic working knowledge of the regional language.
A senior railway ocial said that besides language issues between some employees and the travelling public, there were communication problems at work, too. In a recent case reported in the Salem Division, where the locopilot of a relief engine was instructed by the Chief Loco Inspector to run at 50 kmph instead of the prescribed limit of 15 kmph during the day and 10 kmph at night, the conversation took place in Hindi.
“It appeared that the Chief Loco Inspector was trying to speak in whatever Hindi he knew with the locopilot, who belonged to a North Indian State. Understanding and being conversant in the local language also helps in implementing safety instructions,” the ofcial said.