Cabinet approves productivity linked bonus worth Rs 2,028 cr for railway employees

Indian Railways

The Union Cabinet announced and approved payment of Productivity Linked Bonus (PLB) for the country’s 11,72,240 railway employees at a total cost of Rs 2,028.57 crore, aimed to recognise and motivate the staff for their excellent performance.

The PLB amount, equivalent to 78 days’ wages, “will be paid to various categories of railway staff like track maintainers, loco pilots, train managers (guards), station masters, supervisors, technicians, technician helpers, pointsman, ministerial staff and other Group XC staff,” according to a government statement. “The payment of PLB acts as an incentive to motivate the railway employees for working towards improvement in the performance of the Railways.”

The maximum amount payable per eligible railway employee is Rs 17,951 for 78 days.

“The performance of Railways in the year 2023-2024 was very good. Railways loaded a record cargo of 1588 million tonnes and carried nearly 6.7 billion passengers. Many factors contributed to this record performance. These include improvement in infrastructure due to infusion of record Capex by the Government in Railways, efficiency in operations and better technology etc,” the government said.

Last year as well, Railways had announced a 78-day bonus for all non-gazetted employees. As per the sixth Pay Commission, the minimum basic income for Group D employees is Rs 7,000, which translate to around Rs 18,000 for a 78-day corpus.

In 2022, Centre rolled out a 78-day Diwali bonus of Rs 17,951 per employee to over 11 lakh railways staff, which totalled up to Rs 1,832 crore.