Indian Railways set to become better

S Vishnu Sharmaa, INN/Chennai, @Svs03

Indian Railways is about to undergo transformation organisational restructuring. Sources say this move has also won the approval from the Union Cabinet.

Various measures would be taken as part of restructuring and they have been approved at a meeting of Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The measures are unification of the existing eight Group A services of the Railways into a Central Service called Indian Railway Management Service (RMS).

The other measure is to re-organise of Railway Board on functional lines headed by CRB with four members and some independent members. Renaming the existing Indian Railway Medical Service (IRMS) as Indian Railway Health Service (IRHS).

Railways has an ambitious programme to modernise and provide the highest standards of safety, speed and services to the passengers with a proposed investment of Rs. 50 lakh crore over the next 12 years.

This requires speed and scale, and a unified, agile organisation to work single-mindedly on this task and capable of responding to challenges. Today’s reforms are in a series of reforms that have been undertaken under the present government including merger of Rail Budget with Union Budget, delegation of powers to empower GMs and field officers, allowing competitive operators to run trains.

These measures were required to deal with next level challenges and also tackle existing difficulties, say sources.

Indian Railway systems are managed by the government while its counter parts across the globe are corporatized.

It is organised into various departments such as traffic, civil, mechanical, electrical, signal and telecom, stores, personnel and accounts and many more.

These departments are vertically separated from top to bottom and are headed by a secretary level officer (Member) in the Railway Board. This organization of the department runs deep down to the grassroot level of the Railways.

Unification of services will end this ‘departmentalism’, promote smooth working of Railways, expedite decision making, create a coherent vision for organisation and promote rational decision making.

Unification of services has been recommended by various committees for reforming Railways like Prakash Tandon Committee, Rakesh Mohan Committee, Sam Pitroda Committee and Bibek Debroy Committee.

This reform was undertaken with  overwhelming support of Railway officers, at a two-day conference held in Delhi on 7 and 8 December.

To act on this and create confidence in Railway officers that their suggestions are valued, Railway Board held a meeting of the Board during the conference on 8 December itself and recommended a number of reforms including the ones mentioned.

A unified Group A service named Indian Railways Management Service (IRMS) will be created from next recruitment cycle. This will be done in consultation with UPSC and DoPT to facilitate rrecruitment in the next recruitment year.

Sources say, this new measure will help enable Railways to recruit engineers/non-engineers as per requirement. And provide equal oppurtunities for both of them for career growth.

The newly recruited officers will come from engineering and non-engineering disciplines as per need and posted as per their aptitude and specialisation to allow them to specialise in one field, develop an overall perspective, and prepare them to take up general management responsibilities at senior levels.
Selection for the general management positions shall be through a merit-based system. Railway Board will not be organised on departmental lines any longer, it will be replaced with a leaner structure that is based on functional lines.

It will have a Chairman who will act as ‘Chief Executive Officer (CEO)’ along with four members responsible for infrastructure, operations and business development, rolling stock and finance respectively.

The Chairman shall be the cadre controlling officer responsible for human resources with assistance from a DG (Human Resources).And, three apex level posts shall be surrendered from Railway Board and all the remaining posts of the Railway Board shall be open to all officers regardless of the service to which they belonged.

The board will also have some independent members (the number to be decided by competent authority from time to time), who will be highly distinguished professionals with deep knowledge and 30 years of experience including at the top levels in industry, finance, economics and management fields.  

The independent members will help Railway Board in setting a strategic direction. The restructured Board will start functioning after approval of the Board taking due care to ensure that officers are posted in the restructured Board or adjusted in the same pay and rank till their retirement.