Why in news? 

The Prime Minister Office 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 is the need of the hour. 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 are 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?

In 1947, the Railway Board had a Chief Commissioner (in 1951, re-designated as Chairman), a Financial Commissioner, and three Members (Transportation, Staff and Engineering).  Later in 1954 – a Member Mechanical was added and in 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.  In 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. 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 with civil engineering commanding the largest chunk, followed by mechanical engineering, traffic, etc.. 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.