NEW DELHI: In just about six years, the railways has come full circle and more or less returned to the earlier system, not only for recruiting officers but also for appointing its topmost officials, including the chairman and members of the railway board, as well as general managers across all zones.In the recently notified Indian Railway (Selection to Senior Posts) Rules, the ministry has specified that only officers from Indian Railway Accounts Service (IRAS) or IRMS (Accounts) will be eligible to become member (finance) and similarly only Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS) or IRMS (Traffic) will be member (operation and business development). Officers from Indian Railway Personnel Service (IRPS) or IRMS (personal) will be eligible for director general (HR) and members for two other highly technical areas will be selected from different railway engineering services.In Dec 2019, the Cabinet had approved the merger of eight railway services into one — Indian Railway Management Services (IRMS) — and govt had touted it as the biggest reform to end departmentalism within the railway bureaucracy.However, implementation of IRMS resulted in confusion and strong opposition from railway employees. The national transporter was unable to attract enough fresh technical manpower through the new service, forcing the railways to revert to the earlier system of recruiting railway engineers and non-technical personnel through the UPSC. Under IRMS, there was a single examination with uniform eligibility criteria for both technical and non-technical candidates. Now, there are two separate exams.“The latest notification on the selection of top-level officials for posts linked to specific services is the final signal that IRMS was conceived and approved without adequate thought,” said a senior railway official.Officials from both technical and non-technical cadres have expressed dissatisfaction with the new rules. A senior railway engineer said, “Engineering services collectively get only 2–3 posts in the board, despite having a majority presence in the organisation, whereas non-technical services get exclusive and uncontested posts. This creates unequal competition pressure.”An official from the railway traffic service added that no IRTS officer will be eligible to apply for member posts advertised in 2026 and 2027, as no officer from the service will meet the eligibility criteria. He said that the requirement of having at least two years of residual service to be appointed as a GM will be almost impossible for most non-technical officers to fulfil.What makes the selection process for GMs even more subjective is the detailed application requirement. Each eligible officer must list: the top five challenging situations faced; the top five lifetime contributions to the organisation; the top five instances of effective teamwork; the top three instances of effective leadership; and the top three systemic changes implemented during their career.
