Not many to engineer Metro Rail

Not many to engineer Metro Rail
DH News Service, Bangalore:
Seven months into on-ground work for the Namma Metro (Reach 1), the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation (BMRC) is facing a human resource crunch on the men who matter: the engineers.

BMRC Managing Director V Madhu said on Monday that recruitment of engineers for the project had been a slow process due to the non-availability of qualified candidates.

Among the major prerequisites the BMRC is looking for in the candidates are prior experience in metro rail engineering and signalling.

The Metro, as it stands, requires another 40 engineers across divisions, Madhu said. The BMRC has already employed around 80 engineers.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, a default resource for metro rail engineers and experts in the country, is not in a position to chip in for the Bangalore Metro because the DMRC itself needs the personnel for work on the next phase of the Delhi Metro. Madhu added that the Indian Railways had also been approached for assistance in this regard.

The BMRC has been putting up advertisements calling for candidates to engineer posts in various divisions including Designs and Contract, Traction, Rolling Stock, Corridors, Signalling and Telecommunication.

The engineers have to resign from their present jobs before joining us... and that takes time. We are recruiting people, but they are coming in one by one,” Madhu said.

Work on Reach 1 of the project — between Chinnaswamy Stadium and Byappanahalli — had commenced in March this year. The Phase I of the Bangalore Metro is tipped to be commissioned by December 2011.

Pay problems
A major stumbling block ahead in recruiting engineers is the modest remuneration packages, according to Madhu.
“Despite pay packages that offer around 30 per cent more than what the State government is offering, recruitment has been a slow process,” he said.

According to the BMRC MD, the offer might not be tempting enough for many engineers who are being paid astronomical salaries, both home and abroad. \However, he pointed out that a stint with the Bangalore Metro would help the engineers associated with the project scale highs in their careers.

“After four years of training in the Bangalore Metro, these engineers will be considered prized resources in the industry,” he reasoned.

Changing face of the City
As the work on Namma Metro steadily gains speed, Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Managing Director V Madhu took time off to detail the various facets of the project to Deccan Herald reporters and how it’s set to change the face of the City. Making a presentation on the Rs-6,395 crore project at the Deccan Herald office on an invitation from this newspaper, the BMRC MD gave a detailed account of the project, complete with its scope, opportunities and challenges.