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Unification of Railway Management Services

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August 25, 2020

Why in news?

The PMO wants the process of amalgamating the railway services to be completed by November 2020.

What is the story behind?

  • In 2019, the Cabinet decided to integrate the Railways’ eight Group ‘A’ services into a single Indian Railways Management Service (IRMS).
  • It wanted to downsize the Railway Board, re-designating its members on functional basis instead of departments.
  • The government directed the whole process of amalgamating the services to be finalised within a year by a Home Minister-led group of ministers.

Why an enduring format needs to be devised?

  • A successful transition to a new integrated cadre will depend on devising an enduring format for future recruitment.
  • A fair readjustment of existing 8,400 Group A officers to have their legitimate career progression should be done.
  • Those existing officers who are unwilling to opt for merger with IRMS may be allowed to continue, seeking their prospects in their cadres.
  • But, those who are opting for merger must be prepared for a fresh selection by the UPSC to determine inter-se seniority, done on basis of genuine suitability.
  • Age and seniority based on rank in UPSC test years back alone cannot be a fair measure of suitability.

What is the anomalies with regard to the top GM posts?

  • The other major concern is of increasing anomalies and distortions with regard to top general management (GM) posts.
  • There is an issue that these top posts are being occupied by officers from certain departments.
  • In government, career prospects mostly depend on date of birth, and rank in UPSC results.
  • The administration remains purblind to disadvantage of age encountered by officers through civil services stream, against those from the engineering services examination.
  • The former generally join the service when they are 25-27 years old, while the latter join technical cadres at 21-24.
  • There’s a similar age anomaly in the case of Special Class Apprentices.
  • This affects the morale of the staff.
  • The organisation is the major loser, as it fails to optimally utilise its trained and experienced human capital.

How did the selection procedure of the top managers evolve?

  • 1947 - The Railway Board had a Chief Commissioner (in 1951, re-designated as Chairman), a Financial Commissioner, and three Members (Transportation, Staff and Engineering).
  • 1954 - A Member Mechanical was added.
  • 1987 - A Member Electrical was added.
  • Soon clamour set in for the remaining two cadres (Signalling and Stores) also to have their representation on the Board.
  • 2015 - The government initiated a halfway measure to merge two verticals of Electrical and Mechanical branches on ‘functional lines’.
  • But, the Railway Board was expanded to make it a nine-Member body, with two new Members, one for Signalling, and one for Stores.
  • Meanwhile, since 1980s, precepts for selection of GMs and Board Members for railways were altered.
  • Thereby, this eroded the effectiveness of the system.
  • A mechanism should have been devised first for the selection of suitable officers with requisite experience from different disciplines.

How should the Railways’ top posts be manned?

  • The primary task of the Railways is production and marketing transport efficiently and economically.
  • So, its top management posts must be manned only by those who are appropriately trained and exposed to the market vagaries and rigours of field operations.
  • Those others who provide vital support for railways’ primary business would naturally be enabled to rise in their specialised domains.
  • That is how the Tandon Committee (1994) advised for suitable selection of officers.

What are the other anomalies?

  • Anomalies and distortions have been creeping in through subtle ploys.
  • Departmental posts are ring-fenced.
  • Some departments particularly compete to inflate the numbers to secure senior positions proportionate to the respective cadre strengths.
  • Little has ever been attempted to determine cadre-wise optimal strength.
  • It currently varies widely: Civil engineering commands the largest chunk, followed by Mechanical Engineering, Traffic, etc.,
  • Work charged posts - Departments engaged in executing projects kept widening their bases through “work charged” posts.
  • The Debroy Committee found that these posts were surreptitiously continued for years well after the projects were completed.

What could be done?

  • There is a need to create a cohesive and integrated ‘cadre’ for the future.
  • For this, the Railways may look for its entire Group ‘A’ managers to be inducted into IRMS only from amongst technical/engineering graduates.
  • For future recruitments, there may thus be no major hurdle to abide by the underlying spirit of IRMS.
  • Again, it is of critical importance that the Railways institutionalise the selection for the general management pool.
  • A rigorous selection process together with training will help an enduring management cadre to evolve.

 

Source: Business Line

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