Chennai Metro handovers operation of six metro stations to private players

Chennai (Urban Transport News): In a significant step towards privatizing Chennai Metro operations, the Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) has handed over its six stations to the outsourced employees (private players) holding the position of station in-charge beginning from Sunday. Earlier these stations were being supervised by station controllers, who are permanent employees of Chennai Metro Rail Limited. CMRL officials said that this is partially privatization of operations; they have merely given the contract to a private firm to deploy personnel for the post of 'station in-charge' for six stations on the stretch between Thirumangalam and Chennai Central.

CMRL has planned to handover another 10 stations, to another private firm in the coming weeks. 50 percent of stations i.e. 16 stations will be operated by outsourced employees as "station in-charge" by the private players. According to officials, the outsourced staff will be given extensive training and will have to undergo a test before being given a competency certificate to handle a metro station. Officials further clarified that the outsourced employees will be referred to as 'station in-charge' and the job they will perform is essentially the same as a 'station controller', a designation given to a permanent employee of CMRL.

At present, in every station, except the station controller, the rest of the staff are outsourced personnel. The reason why the outsourced employees are brought in, is to cut cost. While an outsourced employee (working as station controller) is paid around ₹22,000-25,000, a permanent employee gets ₹45,000-50,000. These permanent employees need not worry because they will be given other jobs in CMRL; there is no dearth of jobs.

Sources said that the main reason to hand over the operation of metro stations to private operators is because of regular employees opposing the privatization and threatening to stop train operations.

Several of them went on protest three months back protesting outsourcing of employees; when that happened, a few staff deliberately introduced a technical glitch in the system that brought the running of trains across the 45-km network to a grinding halt, affecting thousands of passengers. At that time, many of the outsourced employees came to our rescue.

In line with Chennai Metro Rail Limited, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has floated two tenders to fully privatize train operations on two metro corridors (Line 1 & 2).