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Railway runs off track on gender issue
Sri Lanka’s 160-year-old Railway Department freezes women out of all its top-level skilled and executive positions and recruits them only to minor positions, provided there are applications received, data obtained through the Right to Information (RTI) Act show.
The Railway Department does not issue application forms for women employees, said J.A.D.R. Pushpakumara, Director (Planning) and Information Officer, in response to an RTI request lodged by the Sunday Times. When applications are received for minor positions, for which forms are issued, women are recruited based on suitability.
The Department’s 2017 annual performance report says that it has 15,413 employees. The RTI application reveals that, of this, only 1,202 are women. This is just seven percent of the total workforce. Of this, 148 women are casual or substitute workers. The majority (276) are technician attendants or railway attendants, while the next highest category is railway clerk (217), followed by public management assistant (185), “office employees service” (178) and development officers (126). Across the Department, there is only one female Additional General Manager (Admin) who is from the Sri Lanka Administration Service and 17 engineers.
Advertisements for senior Railway Department positions also provide insight into this policy of gender discrimination. Applications were recently called for the open competitive examination for recruitment to “Executive Service Category of Grade III of Assistant Superintendent (Commercial/Transportation)”. Twelve appointments were to be made.
One of the criteria to sit the exam was: “Be a citizen of Sri Lanka & be a male applicant”. Other criteria are sound moral character; and be physically and mentally fit to serve in any part of the island.
Entrance to executive-level categories, therefore, is through exams which are restricted to males. Higher-level job eligibility is then limited to internal promotions from among those men. These are job grades significantly with higher pay.
The RTI application also asked for the number of women currently enrolled at the Sri Lanka German Railway Technical Training Centre. There are 21 women now receiving instruction there out of a total annual intake of 90. This works out to 23 percent of students.
However, although intake is open to both men and women (there is no gender criterion there), female trainees have low career prospects at Sri Lanka Railways owing to the inherent restrictions.
The Department has multiple chief engineers, deputy chief engineers, directors, assistant and deputy directors, engineers, superintendents, superintendents of engineer, survey and assistant superintendents, deputy general managers, engine drivers, guards inspectors, station superintendents, supervisory and chief supervisory managers, and so on.