Creation of Two Services in lieu of unified IRMS, is the best solution

The role of day-to-day coordination at the policy and execution level is played by the Civil Servants in Indian Railways, which requires a definitive tested skill-set and functional experience

The Civil Servants of Indian Railways, would like to continuous commitment towards government vision of a modern, commercially viable and socially relevant Indian Railways. But they have certain concerns regarding merger of all Engineering and Civil Service cadres into one cadre. This requires members of GoM’s personal attention.

Officers feel that the merger in the current form would be unable to address the desired results from the reform process. Hence, based on the “important yet different roles, functions and skill sets” of the Civil Services Officers and the Engineering Officers, requested that the merger be carried on the lines of two services- Administrative and Engineering. 

Railways is mainly a “transportation organisation” whose main function is to move goods and people from one place to another in a safe, secure, punctual, economical and satisfying manner. The different engineering assets like tracks, rolling stock, locos, signals, etc. are utilised in a coordinated manner to achieve the above objectives.

This role of day-to-day coordination at the policy and execution level is played by the Civil Servants in Indian Railways, which requires a definitive tested skill-set and functional experience.

For example, in state governments and district units, the different departments like Works, Irrigation, Health, Electricity, Education etc. have their important and distinct roles to play but the coordinating role to maximise the output is played by the Civil Servants.

The Civil Services also play the role of an internal auditor within Indian Railways. The internal audits are relating to asset failures, expenditure control, project utility, welfare of staff, shortcomings and delays in project execution, etc.

This ensures checks and balances in a mammoth organisation like Indian Railways.

The beautiful combinations of Technocrats recruited through CSE (Engineering Service Examination) and the Generalists recruited through CSE (Civil Service Examination) have helped the Indian Railways survive the test of time over 167 years.

The various departments in Railways work with their individual targets and there might be some conflicting interest that one department want to run more trains for optimisation of its operational goal while other department may require more block time maintenance of assets.  

It is the Civil Servants of Indian Railways who are the interface of general public with their tested socio-economic aptitude. Therefore, the decision to merge Technical Cadres with General Cadres will take away the human touch from Indian Railways. 

It is apprehended that with the merger of all Engineering and Civil Services officers into a single cadre, the Quality Review of assets (created and maintained by Engineering Officers) by Civil Service Officers for service delivery will be completely lost.

The following skill-set matrix clearly showcases that the Civil Servants (having joined Indian Railways through CSE), have a similar bunch of skill sets which should be utilized aptly for the role they have been selected for in the Indian Railways through the rigorous process of Civil Services Examination. Hence the merger of all Civil Services into one service of administrative service with interchangeability is practical as well as logical.

Indian Railways in the current scenario is clearly missing proper representation of Civil Service Officers at the decision making levels (only 3 out of 27 GMs are from Civil Services). This has resulted in regular disputes amongst Engineering departments, delayed project execution and misplaced organisational priorities. The proposed merger of all cadres into one would further reduce the representation of Civil Servants and further alienating them from the vision of the Organisation.

PROPOSED WAY FORWARD

1. Merger into Two Services —Administrative and Engineering: Merger/Unification of all the services into IRMS is neither prudent, nor justified. Officers urges for merger of existing Services into two — Administrative and Engineering with inter-changeability within.

2. Separate seniority for Administrative and Engineering Services: Officers urged for preserving the recommendations of recent Cadre Review Committee, approved by the Cabinet viz. specific percentage of scale/grade wise posts in the existing 3 Civil Services (IRTS, IRAS, IRPS) as a percentage of total scale/grade wise posts.

3. A post of Member HR to be created in Railway Board in place of DG HR. Indian Railways is a labour intensive organisation with 13 lakh employees where the wages and pension bill account for approx. 65% of the total expenditure. Maintaining and furthering peaceful Industrial Relations in this era of Technological Change is of utmost importance for growth of Indian Railways and therefore HR needs representation at the Apex level.

4. Fixation of adequate General Administration posts: Presently, out of the 27 General Managers (GMs), only 3 GMs are from the Civil Services. If adequate Civil Services officers are not posted to General Administrative posts due to unfavourable ‘inter-se seniority’ formula, it is sheer wastage of talent and competency. It is also a cause for lower motivation and morale due to the age-based ‘glass ceiling’.

Certain core competencies are developed by Railway Civil Servants right from Junior Scale. They are functionally groomed throughout their career to coordinate and work across departments. Harnessing this will lead to the achievement of organizational goals.

General Administrative and Apex level posts which are not directly related to technology upgradation and asset creation be only manned by Civil  Service officers.

Although Indian Railways is a very Complex Organisation where both technocrats and generalists are required as Railway need to handle its own infrastructure, Rolling Stock, Finance, Operations, Business and Human Resource.  For this two different types of skill induction need to be ensured through Indian Railway Administrative Service and Indian Railway Technical Service. 

It is suggested that the entire matter be examined by the GoMs with a meeting of all Railway officers, specially Civil Service officers be called and should be given a fair chance to express their views, before any final decision is taken.

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