Concerns in Railways Organisation

What is the issue?

• The Bibek Debroy Committee made its recommendation on railway reforms.
• It needs a reassessment with a holistic approach, in terms of addressing the varied concerns in Railways.

What are the concerns in Railways?

• Departmentalism - The Bibek Debroy Committee refers to the negative aspects of functional specialisation as “departmentalism”.
• Departmentalism is a major constraint for bringing about rapid change in the Railways organisation.
• This manifests itself in the form of unhealthy competition amongst departments.
• Competition - They compete for appropriating a larger share of scarce resources.
• Competition for usurping a larger share of key general management posts also exists.
• This is for better access to power, authority etc.
• Personnel - Narrow departmental goals are pursued at the cost of organisational goals and objectives.
• Resultantly, there is lack of team work and cohesion.
• Departmentalism seems to mix up the issue of career progression with the issue of departmental bias.
• These are related issues, but it’s important to address them separately to find a solution to “departmentalism”.
• Cadres - Currently the personnel for each of the departments are recruited as distinct cadres.
• This takes place through the civil services examination for the four non-engineering disciplines.
• For the five engineering disciplines, engineering services examinations are conducted.

What are the concerns with the recommendations?

• The Debroy Committee make suggestion for two services, by merging the different cadres.
• One, recruited through the civil services examination and the other through the engineering services examination.
• Merger of cadres would help resolve the inter-cadre tussle for top positions.
• It is also expected to free managerial behaviour of departmental bias.
• Concerns - However, the departments would still exist, and so would departmental goals.
• So how far would single cadre or just two cadres lead everyone to work towards the organisational goal is uncertain.
• Also, there are technical concerns in the merging of the cadre.
• Decisions taken by non-technical personnel on technical matters would remain a concern.
• Merged cadres may not necessarily lead to more focus on organisational goals rather than departmental goals.

What is the way forward?

• The merger of cadres is a major surgical intervention proposed by the Debroy Committee.
• It is a possibly way of resolving career progression issues but not coordination issues.
• Strengthening all coordination mechanisms that exist and the creation of such mechanisms where they do not exist is crucial.
• So, unification of performance metrics across departments and merger of indices of performance is essential.
• Departments can thus work synchronously towards the goals of the whole organisation.

Source: Indian Express