RAILWAY SERVANTS
(HOURS OF WORKING AND PERIOD OF REST)
RULES - 2005
PART- II
CLASSIFICATION OF EMPLOYMENT AND HOURS OF WORK
3. Prescribed authority to classify the employment of railway servant:
(1) The power to declare the employment of railway servants as 'intensive' or
essentially intermittent' within the meaning of section 130 shall vest in the Head
of the Railway Administration:
Ø Provided that the Head of the Railway Administration may, in his
discretion, delegate the power vested in him under this sub-rule to the
Chief Personnel Officer:
Ø Provided further that during the period of emergency such as flood,
accident, the power vested in the competent authority can be exercised
by an officer not below the rank of senior scale.
(2) A copy of every declaration made by the prescribed authority under sub-rule (1) shall, as soon as may be, sent to the Regional Labour Commissioner
concerned and, in case the declaration is made by an officer other than the Head
of the Railway Administration, to the Head of the Railway Administration or the
Chief Personnel Officer, as the case may be.
4. Appeals against classification:
(1) Any railway servant aggrieved by the declaration of classification made under
rule 3 may, within ninety days from the date of such declaration, prefer an appeal
to the Regional Labour Commissioner, who, after scrutiny of relevant documents
or ifconsidered necessary, after a fresh job analysis, may order for a change in the
classification.
(2) Any railway servant or Railway Administration aggrieved by a decision of the
Regional Labour Commissioner may, before the expiry of ninety days from the
date on which the decision of the Regional Labour Commissioner is
communicated to him, prefer an appeal to the Secretary to the Government of
India in the Ministry of Labour who will dispose it off after hearing the parties
concerned.
5. Supervisory staff:
(1) The Ministry of Labour shall, by order in writing, specify the railway servants
or classes of Railway servants who shall be treated as supervisory staff under sub clause (iv) of clause (c) of section 130 on the ground that the Railway servant
holds a position of responsibility, is employed on duties mainly of a supervisory
character and is, from the nature of his work and position, comparatively free to
adjust his hours of duty or work during such hours :
Provided that the railway servants who on the date of publication of these rules
are treated as supervisory staff under these rules shall continue to be treated as
such until the orders specifying the railway servants or classes of railway servants
as supervisory staff is issued under this sub-rule.
(2) A copy of every such order issued under sub-rule (1) shall be furnished to the
Chief Labour Commissioner (Central), New Delhi.
6. Excluded staff:
The following categories of staff of the Health and Medical Department shall be
treated as 'excluded' under sub-clause (v) of clause (c) of Section 130, namely :—
(a) Matrons:
(b) Sisters-in-charge;
(c) Midwives who are not posted on regular shift duty in Railway Hospitals
(d) Health Educators and District Extension Educators (Male and Female)
(e) Family Planning Field Workers (Male and Female);
(f) Lady Health Visitors;
(g) Auxiliary Nurses-cum-Midwives;
(h) Projectionists.
In addition to the above, the Ministry of Railways may, by order in writing,
specify any other category of railway staff in any of the Departments of the Indian
Railways who shall be treated as 'Excluded' on the consideration that such staff
are available on call.
7. Criteria for determining classification of railway servants-
(1) Continuous : All employments of Railway servants except those exclude: from
the purview of the Hours of Employment Regulations are assumed to be
`Continuous', thereafter, on the basis of factual job analysis, the employment
may be classified either as 'intensive' or 'essentially intermittent', as the case may
be
(2) Intensive: The two important factors in declaring an employment as `Intensive'
under clause (d) of section 130 of the Act are :—
(i) Strenuous nature of the work tending to cause mental or physical strain; and
(ii) Continuous application to such work with little or no periods of relaxation
Explanation I:- The term' continued concentration' in clause (d) of the Section 130
is intended to convey that the attention demanded of the Railway servant
concern& for a particular nature of job should be exclusive not to allow any other
thought or idea to enter the mind and must be of such nature as to cause strain
(physical or mental or both) upon the Railway servant concerned as a result of
continuous application to such work over certain period without reasonable
periods of respite. Thus, having regard to the entire period of duty and nature of
work, the prescribed authority shall before declaring any employment as
'Intensive', satisfy itself that the above factors are present in the job concerned. In
other words, the prescribed authority shall consider whether the job is of such a
character that it demands continued concentration without any reasonable periods
of relaxation.
Explanation II:- Factor (ii) should be considered to have been satisfied where the
periods of rest, inaction or relaxation do not aggregate 6 hours or more in a cycle
of 24 hours or one hour or more in a shift of 8 hours.
(3) Essentially Intermittent: The work of an employee is to be regarded as
essentially intermittent' if his daily duty hours which should be assumed to be
twelve hours per day include
(a) One period of inaction of not less than one hour, or two such periods of
no-less than half an hour each, and
(b) Various periods of inaction including the period of inaction specified in
clause (a) aggregating 50 per cent or more, during which he is not generally
called upon to display either physical activities or sustained attention.
Note: In assessing the work-load of the 'essentially intermittent' classification in
accordance with sub-section (b) of Section 130, periods of inaction of less than 5
minutes shall be ignored.
8. Fixation of hours of work:
The hours of work of a Railway servant as per roster (hereinafter referred to as the
rostered hours of work) may be continuous or may have short interval for rest, or
breaks due to exigencies of service or deployment.
(1) Subject to the limit specified in section 132 and having regard to the
requirement of the service and the nature of work, the Railway Administration
shall fix the normal rostered hours of work for the various categories of railway
servants in the manner indicated in these rules.
(2) The rostered hours of work of Railway servants shall consist of-
(i) Standard hours of duty;
(ii) Additional hours as may be prescribed in the case of certain categories
classified as essentially intermittent; and
(iii) Time required to do preparatory or complementary work or both for
those who are required to do such work.
(3) The standard hours of duty for different classes of employment of Railway
servants shall be as under : -
(a) Intensive 42 hours a week;
(b) Continuous 48 hours a week; and
(c) Essentially Intermittent 48 hours a week;
(4) (a) Railway servants having essentially intermittent class of employment shall
be called upon to work as per rule 8(2)(ii) additional hours as indicated below :
(i) Gatemen 'C' Caretakers of Rest Houses and Reservoirs, etc., Chowkidars
and Saloon Attendants -24 additional hours per week
(ii) Railway servants posted to work in Essentially Intermittent employment
at road-side stations and provided with residential quarters with 0.5 Kms.
From their place of duty -24 additional hours per
week
(iii) Rest of the employees posted to work in Essentially Intermittent class of
employment –12 additional hours per week.
(b) Such additional hours of work shall be reflected in the duty rosters of the
Railway servants concerned.
(5) The time required by various categories of staff to do preparatory or
complementary work or both, which includes the work of handling over and
taking over charge, must necessarily be carried out outside the limits laid down
for general working of an establishment, branch or shift and shall be determined
by means of job analysis of such work in respect of representative posts in
respective categories.
(6) The time determined under sub-rule (5) shall be added to the standard hours of
duty of the staff in all the various classifications subject to maximum limit
prescribed below:-
(a) When employment is intensive 3 hours a week:
(b) When employment is continuous 6 hours a week
(c) When employment is essentially intermittent: -
(i) Gatemen 'C' Caretakers of Rest Houses and Reservoirs,
Chowkidars, Saloon Attendants and those posted at road-side
stations and provided with residential quarters within 500 meters
from their place of duty - 3 hours a week:
(ii) Railway servants other than those mentioned in sub-clause
(a) - 4-1/2 hours a week
(7) The time required for preparatory or complementary work by the running staff
shall be deemed to be 4 hours a week.
Notes:
(i) Where the time assessed for doing preparatory or complementary
work is under 15 minutes per day, the same shall not be treated as duty
shall not be exhibited in the roster.
(ii) In the case of employment of continuous' nature, the time assessed
for doing’ preparatory or complementary work, between 15 minutes
and less than 45 minutes per day should be treated as half an hour's
work such time between 45 minutes and one hour per day should be
treated as one hour's work.
(iii) In the case of intensive and essentially intermittent categories of
employment, such time assessed between 15 minutes and 30 minutes
per day shall be treated as half an hour's work.
(iv) The time assessed for the work mentioned in Note (iii) shall be
reflected in the duty rosters of the concerned railway servants.
(v) Total hours for preparatory or complementary work or both shall
fixed to ensure that the overall duty hours do not exceed the prescribed
for respective classification in Section 132.
(8) Where Railway servants are required to perform split duty, such duty shall
subject to the following conditions, namely:-
(a) The spells of duty shall not exceed three and the number of breaks shall
be limited to two; -24 additional hours per week
(b) In the case of an employment of 'continuous' nature, the railway servant
whose place of residence is beyond 1.6 kilometers from the place of duty
seven hours of split duty shall be treated as equivalent to eight hours of
normal duty.
(9) While preparing rosters, 'long on' or' short offs hall, accordingly, be avoided
(10) Where, in accordance with the provisions of sub-section (4) of Section - 132
or sub- section (3) of Section 133 and in the circumstances mentioned therein, a -
Railway servant is called upon by an order of temporary exemption made under
Rule 9 below by the competent authority to render duty beyond the hours of work
fixed in accordance with the foregoing sub-rules or beyond the hours prescribes in
sub sections (1), (2) and (3) of the Section 132, it shall be the duty of the Railway
concerned to render such extra hours of duty.
9. Power to make temporary exemption:
(1) Subject to the provisions of sub-section (4) of Section 132 and of sub-section
(3) of Section 133, Head of a Railway Administration may by order in writing
make temporary exemption of any Railway servant or class of Railway servants
from the provisions of sub sections (1), (2) and (3) of Section 132 and subsections (1) and (2) of Section 133.
(2) The Head of Railway Administration may by order in writing delegate his
powers under sub rule (1) to any officer subordinate to him and whom he may
deem it to exercise the powers.
(3) A copy of every order of delegation made under sub-rule (2) shall be sent to
the Regional Labour Commissioner concerned.
10. Principle of averaging and payment of overtime allowance.
(1) Where a Railway servant is required to render extra hours of duty beyond the
rostered hours fixed in accordance with rule 8 or beyond the limits specified for
different classes of Railway servant under section 132, he shall be paid overtime
for such extra hours of work, subject to the principle of averaging as specified in
sub-rule (2).
(2) Averaging shall be done by averaging of the hours of work over the averaging
periods as specified in Section 132 which has been adopted to provide a
reasonable measure of elasticity as essential in railway working for certain classes
of Railway servants and it shall apply to-
(i) Running staff;
(ii) Operating staff;
(iii) Shift workers; and
(iv) Those other Railway servants whose work is connected with the work of
any of the categories of Railway servants mentioned in clauses (i), (ii) and (iii).
(3) Subject to the provisions contained in sub-section (4) of Section 132, payment
of overtime for excess hours of work shall be made as under :-
(i) for the excess hours of work rendered by a Railway servant between the
limits of prescribed rostered hours of work and the hours prescribed in Section
132, during the relevant averaging period, payment shall be made at 11/2 times
the ordinary rate of pay; and
(ii) for the excess hours of work rendered beyond the limits prescribed in
Section 132, payment shall be made at two times the ordinary rate of pay.
(4) The hourly rate of overtime shall be worked out on the basis of rostered hours
over the relevant averaging period as under : -
(i) Hourly rate of Pay (for staff governed by Averaging Principle)
Period of averaging ÷ No. of rostered hours of work in the averaging
period X 1/30 of monthly ordinary rate of pay.
(ii) Hourly rate of pay (for those not governed by Averaging Principle)
1 ÷ No. of daily rostered hours of work X 1/30 of monthly those ordinary
rate of pay
11. Register of extra hours of work:
The particulars of all extra hours of work done by a Railway servant beyond the
prescribed rostered hours of duty shall be recorded in a register to be maintained
in Form 'A' appended to these rules by the officer authorized in this behalf by the
Head of the Railway Administration.
12. Periodical Rest:
(1) Railway servant whose employment is Intensive or Continuous shall be
granted, every week commencing on a Sunday, rest of not less than thirty
consecutive hours and those whose employment is Essentially Intermittent, shall
be granted rest of not less than twenty-four consecutive hours including a full
night.
(2) No Railway servant classified as Intensive, Continuous or Essentially
Intermittent shall be called on duty unless one has had a rest of not less than 12,
10, 8 consecutive hours, respectively after completion of the previous tour of
duty. Such rest shall be given as far as possible through the employment of rest
givers and the rest givers so provided shall be separate for Continuous and
Essentially Intermittent categories.
(3) Locomotive or traffic running staff shall be granted, each month, a rest of at
least five periods of not less than twenty-two consecutive hours each, or a rest of
at least four periods of not less than thirty consecutive hours each including a full
- The hours of work for this purpose shall be calculated from "signing on" to
'signing off”.
(4) The locomotive and traffic running staff shall not normally be away from
headquarters for more than three or four days at a stretch and the periodic rest for
such staff shall be given at headquarters. Rest at headquarters shall always include
a night in bed, and as far as possible be once in every ten days.
(5) Staff on duty in running trains, other than locomotive and traffic running staff
such as Travelling Pay Clerks and Catering Staff attached to Restaurant Car shall
be given periodic rest on the scale and in the manner laid down for the locomotive
and traffic running staff. Some portion of the periodic rest may, however, be given
away from their headquarters having regard to their length of trips.
(6) The working hours and periodic rest of marine staff, other than those who are
governed by the Factories Act shall be regulated in the same manner as running
staff.
(7) In accordance with clause (ii) of sub-section (2) of Section 133 of the Act, the
Head of the Railway Administration may, with the prior approval of the Ministry
of Railways, specify the categories of Railway servants to whom the periods of
rest on scales less than those laid down under sub-section (1) of the said section
prescribed.
13. Compensatory periods of rest:
No Railway servant in respect of whom an exemption has been made under rule
shall be required to work for more than fourteen days without a period of rest and
shall be provided with compensatory rest within this period.