By Chaturanga Samarawickrama  

The Sri Lanka Station Masters’ Union (SLSMU) decided to launch a 24-hour strike from midnight yesterday.  

SLSMU President Sumedha Somaratne told Daily Mirror that the decision was taken for not taking action to fill vacancies that exist in the Department.  

“There is a scarcity of signal operators and the retirees assigned to the service were not paid during the past six months and they had stayed away from work from Monday. Therefore, the trains need to be operated without signals and it will be extremely dangerous,” he said.  

There will be issues while operating train services and several trains might get cancelled tomorrow, Mr Somaratne said.  Responsibility for the inconvenience caused to commuters due to the disruption of train services should be taken by the Government and the Railway Department, he added.