News Railways

Only 8 of 130 in fray picked for IRMS cadre Railway GM posts

[ad_1]

No officer from the civil services has found a place in the much-awaited posting order of newly created Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS) cadre for general manager (GM) posts in Indian Railways. The order issued late Monday had only eight officers from a fray of 130 eligible for the coveted selection.

The selection process instituted by the Railways Ministry on the basis of merit, abolishing seniority-based posting, did not find 122 officers from various batches and services fit for empanelment in the IRMS cadre to fill Level 16 posts of GMs (ex-cadre, Higher Administrative Grade-plus) and equivalent.

These are equivalent to Special Secretary to the Government of India.

Empanelment of four officers who were in the fray have been deferred, as per Monday’s order from the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet. One of them is a civil servant — an Indian Railway Traffic Service officer, serving as an additional member in the Railway Board. The other three are from various engineering services.

Only eight officers, all from different engineering services of Railways, have been selected and subsequently posted as GMs of zonal railways and other units.

Officers serving in Level 15 in batches 1983-86 in the eight organised Group-A services (Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, Traffic, Accounts, Personnel, Signal and Stores) were eligible to apply. Out of these, Traffic, Accounts and Personnel are officers inducted through the civil services examination, while the remaining services are taken from engineering services examination.

In the merit-based system adjudged by the new mechanism, only one officer from the 1985-batch, R N Sunker, has qualified. An officer of civil engineering department, Sunker had in 2019 — he was Divisional Railway Manager, Ratlam, then — proposed massage services in trains as a way of earning non-fare revenue. He has been posted as GM, East Coast Railway.

The other seven qualified officers are from the 1986 batch. Railway Board Secretary R N Singh of the civil engineering department, has qualified and posted as GM, Southern Railway. He earlier served as Divisional Railway Manager, Delhi.

Of the eight officers, three are from mechanical, two from civil engineering, and the rest from stores, signalling and electrical services.

Sources said that among reasons the new mechanism cited for non-qualification of many of the 122 officers, many of whom have maintained “outstanding” service performance record, is that their “integrity” could not be ascertained by the evaluating mechanism.

While the posting was done by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet headed by the Prime Minister, the selection process for empanelment before that had officers going through a process of self-assessment, multi-source assessment (peers, seniors, etc), along with annual confidential reports of the officers.

The Departmental Promotion Committee of Railways made an overall assessment of the officers for empanelment, consisting of Secretary DOP&T, Chairman & CEO Railway Board, and one non-railway officer.

The government instituted this new system in May this year to give a level-playing field to all officers based on merit, and not on the basis of age-based seniority. Moreover, as per the notification, the new system is meant to end “departmentalism” in railways.

The civil servants in railways have been complaining that the earlier age-based system turned a blind eye to merit. They have also claimed that it was unfair to them over time since the two-stage intake method that is the Civil Services Examination coupled with the famed toughness of the exam meant that they were invariably a bit order than their engineering services counterparts. So, three decades later, most of them did not have enough residual service tenure left to vie for top posts.



[ad_2]

Source link