The issue of inter-se seniority and the heart burning amongst the Rly.officers

The Inter-se seniority norms: The heart burning amongst the officers should be avoided

Anomaly in norms regarding Inter-se seniority of different organized Group-A services

The inter se seniority amongst organized Group-A services should be prepared based on the basis of date of joining

Mumbai: The inter-se seniority amongst organized Group-A services should be prepared based on the basis of date of joining as well as representation to all the organized services. At present, the Inter-se seniority norms being followed by the Ministry of Railways for various disciplines in organized Group-A services is as under-

1. Within its own department, no officer getting higher rank in UPSC examination/merit list prepared after training even though his senior may have joined a service late.

2. For determining the inter-se seniority amongst the various organized Group-A services in Railways, date of joining the services (DOITS) is the criteria for determining the inter-se seniority subject to one (1) above for particular service in the inter-se seniority.

These rules are absurd in present day context because in case the officers in top/senior position as per UPSC merit list of any services joined late i.e. joining of his counterpart in other organised services, because of any personal reason all officers below him in his service will become junior to other officers of other organised services in the inter-se seniority so prepared, even though the other officer of his service might have joined earlier compared to his contemporary officer of other organised services. Because of this many of the officers lose a chance to become General Manager, where the inter-se seniority comes into picture for none of their fault.

Few examples are given below-

(i) Mr. S. N. Singh, IRSE presently working as Principal Chief Engineer, South Central Railway is just bellowed Mr. Vishwesh Choubey, IRSE presently working as GM/Metro Railway, Kolkata. But, Mr. S. N. Singh Could not become General Manager though more officers from IRSEE have become GM, who have joined later than Mr. S. N. Singh. Since, Mr. Vishwesh Choubey, IRSE Who is senior to Mr. S. N. Singh, IRSE has joined late and the sufferer is Mr. S.N. Singh, who otherwise had a fair chance to become General Manager.

(ii) Mr. Lalit Kapoor, IRSE is 1981 batch officer, who is senior within IRSE but has joined late compared to all the other IRSE officers of 1981 batch as well as other organised services and as such 1981 batch of IRSE will be placed at the bottom even below the junior most officer of other organised services pertaining to 1981 batch in the inter-se seniority.

Further, in the year 1982, the list of IRSE officers selected was published by Ministry of Railways after a gap of 2 months vis-a-vis publication of a list of other organized Group-A Engineering Services meaning thereby the whole 1982 batch will be at the bottom amongst all Organised Group-A Engineering Services pertaining to 1982 batch.

It is very unfortunate that the Engineering Services Examination conducted by UPSC for the five Organised Services (IRSE, IRSSE, IRSME, IRSS and IRSEE) are conducted on the same date and the results are also published on the same date but due to reasons are best known to the Ministry of Railways, if the list is published separately causing ‘intentional delay’ within officers belonging to the different services, whose list has been brought out at the last will be the sufferer.

To overcome the issue of inter-se seniority and to prevent the heart burning amongst the officers, following measures is suggested by the ‘Railway Samachar’-

The inter-se seniority amongst organized Group-A services should be prepared based on the basis of date of joining as well as representation to all the organized services whereby first the topper of each service pertaining to a particular batch should be placed sequentially in order of date of joining and then second position holder and so on to be placed in the same way. Since the batches of different organized services are varying to a larger degree, so to keep balance amongst various services following rules should be adopted-

For example –

In a particular year, if 50 IRSE officers, 50 IRSME officers, 40 IRSEE officers, 30 IRSSE officers and 10 IRSS officers are taken respectively, then it may be calculated in the following manner-

Total officers taken in a particular year is 180. Since Mechanical and Civil officers are equal in number, so they will have to be placed on 1:1 basis. But for Electrical officers 50/40 i.e. 1.25. It means every 5th officer of Electrical should be placed by the side of every 6th officer of the Civil and Mechanical department. In a similar way for Electrical 50/30 that is the 4th officer of Electrical should be placed by the side of the 6th officer of Civil and Mechanical. Similarly, for Stores, the second position holder should be placed by the side of 6th officers of Mechanical and Civil.

In an opinion of a very senior railway officer, if the inter-se seniority Rules in Railways are modified to take care of above anomaly, probably none of the officers will lose the chance to reach the apex level and the heart burning amongst the officers can be avoided.