Railways drafts protocol to protect its 13 lakh employees from COVID-19

New Delhi: Mapping all its 13 lakh employees and identifying potential quarantine facilities for each of them is part of the protocol drafted by Central Railway to insulate its staffers from COVID-19.
The document – ‘Rail Pariwar Dekh Rekh Muhim' (Drive to take care of the railway family) – lists a series of steps to be followed by zonal railways to keep employees safe.

All 17 zones of the railways, India's largest employer, are preparing to implement the steps recommended, officials said.

COVID-19 has infected more than 5,700 people and claimed at least 166 lives in the country.

"All employees over the respective divisions/ workshops/HQ to be mapped. That is employees name, current residential address, phone numbers should be maintained in such a way that their location (area wise) can be ascertained and they can be contacted anytime...For each employee (including their dependents) a potential quarantine facility /isolation facility should be identified or marked,'' the paper says.

Sources said the protocol is already being implemented in some zones following the deaths of two railway employees in the pandemic.

On April 5, a a 53-year-old technician with no travel history died at a hospital in Siliguri in West Bengal, prompting authorities to order home quarantine for his 12 colleagues and as many medics who treated him. On March 23, an official died of the disease in the West Bengal capital Kolkata.

All concerned senior officials have been advised to keep the complete mapping of employees with them at all times. They have also been told to create a database of healthy employees and volunteers, sources said.

The protocol states that special care must be taken with employees and their dependents who have co-morbidities, the presence of other health complications such as hypertension and diabetes.