Work-life Balance: Insights from Loco-pilots of Malda Division, Eastern Railways

Abstract

The concept of occupation has become specific specialized, and competitive with time. Locomotive Pilots (Loco-Pilots) are one such specific group tasked with operating the Locomotives in Indian Railways which power and maneuver the trains. The themes from the limited literature available in the Indian context (which is mostly quantitative) talks about occupational stress, fatigue, noise induced hearing loss among others. The social life of locomotive pilots is an area which has been problematized that there is lack of balance due to work but can be described further in detail. The objective to document and discuss the balance between work, social life, and family life of loco-pilots. Methodology: The research design is descriptive and the tools of questionnaire and semi structured interview have been used to collect data for quantitative and qualitative respectively. The sampling has been conducted purposively. The ethical considerations of informed consent and anonymity were put into place. Results: There is lack of specific time schedule attached to this job which converts to the absence of specific fixed family time. Further, there are no calendar holidays in their occupation which becomes the concern of leaves not matching the calendar festivals. Also, the calendar festivals enhance the frequency of shift duty (festival special trains) thus lack of leave opportunity. The respondents also mentioned that they miss being a stakeholder in children’s education which is another highlight. The occupation poses as a direct challenge wherein the occupational factors tend to affect the social and familial programmes.