Reform in Organised Services-Critical Analysis, Part-I

With publication of representation given by forty #probationary-officers of the first batch of #IRMS under #training by #ThePrint – “As reform of railway services merger unravels, murmurs of demerger gain ground”, all railway WhatsApp groups are ablaze.

There has been an interesting take by #SudhanshuMani in his blog on The Print’s article where he deems IRMS as “Indian Railways Mismanagement Service”. See – “IRMS, a cure worse than the disease: Infinitely Redundant Management Service”

Editor’s note:

We first received the news article from a retired personnel officer, and after that from so many. We forwarded it to retired members and general managers of different #services apart from requesting serving officers of different #departments for their comments. We got generous inputs from many sources.

Following is compiled with assistance of AI where all messages received were fed and article generated. In its entirety, information or opinion expressed in the article is what we have received from these respected officers.

We understand the anxiety of young probationary officers and wish them a very bright career ahead. But as you would see in the following compilation, that these young officers should not become party to #machinations of their seniors.

The Petition by Probationers-Core Issues

Petition apparently signed by 40 probationers have essentially raised following issues:

• Any further move to restructure #Railway-services, after creation of IRMS, should be resisted, as the move would be against #cabinet decision and against the #service-conditions against which they were recruited.
• That denial of technical positions to IRMS would affect their career progression. Many probationary officers have engineering background and they feel with suitable training they can handle technical positions.
• That IRMS is the way to meet needs of aspirational India in twenty first century.

Basic Issues-Setting the Ground

To clarify, the young officers who signed and the agent provocateurs who drafted the representation, need to understand how #recruitment of engineering officers happened. The #engineering officers were selected through Engineering Services Examination (#ESE) of #UPSC (like #CSE for them), not through Indian Engineering Services Examination (#IESE) which does not exist!

Secondly, there is no such thing in service contracts which limits ability of #government to #reform or #restructure. If someone should complain, then existing organised services of #railways have a reason to, as their service does not exist anymore except for those remaining in service and waiting to retire like last specimen of a species. Further, none of nine services now has its encadred #secretary-level position-a major departure from what used to be the inviolable norm when officers joined.

Reminiscing on the nature of apex organisation, #RailwayBoard had only one unencadred #Member position, viz. that of Member Staff. Member Traffic was with #IRTS, Member Finance with #IRAS, Member Mechanical with #IRSME, Member Engineering with #IRSE, Member Electrical with #IRSEE.

Not anymore.

In fact, no officer who was recruited in five engineering services (#IRSE, #IRSME, #IRSEE, #IRSSE, #IRSS) and four of civil services examination (#IRTS, #IRPS, #IRAS, #RPF) can be promoted to Level-17 as entire level-17 has now been given to a new service called #IRMS. Going by what the agent provocateurs say dear probationers, what would you call this, how fair has the system been to your seniors?

And, on the #cabinet-decision, did the #agent provocateurs tell you that same cabinet decision to create IRMS had decided to grant Level-17 to all general managers, this was withdrawn! How fair has this been to the general managers who by the way now belong to IRMS.

In fact, if someone should have a #complain, then #complainant should be the officers of these nine services. A new service now has been given all general manger and board member positions in most opaque manner, which almost all officers feel has been done without needed #transparency.

On issue of #promotion, there was a very interesting situation when the #notification of IRMS empanelment had to be withdrawn as several of the 1989 and 90 batch officers of engineering services are yet to be promoted to #HAG unlike #CSE recruited officers of same batch. Extremely lopsided structure of few services place them on unequal footing. For example, IRAS has far too many posts than the posted officers, which makes their promotion fastest-it is not good for the system that officers who build and hold the network seeing their many years juniors sitting as #CHODs and #PHODs without handling a fraction of workload. Also look at the number of subordinate officials from Group ‘B’, ‘C’ and erstwhile ‘D’ under Accounts department. What is even more intriguing is that this service has even retained personnel function also making them an island, they also bargained for an encadred Member position, where as the position in past was open to the IA&AS.

Basic Issues-Analysis of services

Over the years there has been proliferation of services. For example, addition of IRSS in engineering services side and IRPS from civil services have been seen as an excessive #bureaucratic creep. Earlier roles of #stores and #personnel (even today in some cases) were done by officers drawn from different cadres. In fact with well codified procurement and establishment manuals, the two services could have easily been merged with other services, reducing number of services, one each from civil and engineering side.

#APO or #AFM or #AMM vis a vis Assistant Officer of #operating or #engineering departments present study of contrasts as we will see. The #grievance starts at this level itself. With no responsibility of delivery or professional need to forego sleep or leave, APO, AFM or AMMs get same promotions and perks as their other counterparts.

Let us look at the services individually and capture core strengths, weaknesses and relevance focusing at the value creation by members of each service:

Civil Services:

Indian Railway Personnel Service

IRPS is one service which always lacked justification.

It were workshop officers and civil engineers who handled the bulk of #industrial-relations issues on ground-industrial relations handling at ground has been majorly with #technical-services. #Operating and #Commercial department also has a very large complement of staff, many of them are porters and those who do similar jobs. However, they are no longer in harsh labour jobs.

IRPS is seen more inclined to be #spokesperson for #unions than defending interests of railways. Moreover, failure of IRPS to handle the issue of Group ‘A’ vs Group ‘B’ which was valiantly fought by young direct officers up to Supreme Court at their personal expense has also left a deep sense of grievance. IRPS was seen as service which will side with one who shouts the loudest-the ethics they studied to clear CSE be damned. In field, typically the number of #peons and #stenos will be highest in personnel department. Loss of #NAIR (erstwhile Railway Staff College) also owes to a member of this service who had sufficiently deep political links to resist pressure to give away the NAIR. But she despite holding charge of NAIR used her links to get permission to operate from New Delhi.

IRPS should go back to its ex-cadre days and the service effectively shut down and merged with other services. It is very unfair to grant express promotions without any physical pressure of delivery. Also the department has large complement of subordinates.

Indian Railway Traffic Service

Traffic department has two main verticals-commercial and operating.

Cutting the clutter: Capacity which is created by engineering services is marketed by commercial and operated by operating department.

Corruption in commercial department has been legendary. Station vending is big source of easy money. Parcel cartels have worked hand in glove and led to railway bleed its share systematically and continually. Vice like grip of commercial inspectors is without a parallel. Their links with unscrupulous elements and political elements take customer facing function of IR with employees who typically are least bothered about customers. Even railway officers hesitate to book their kits through railways explains the ground situation.

Operating in non-earning railways has been doing a fairly straight job, however, wherever there is loading, the operating officers now routinely game the rake management.

The unfortunate aspect of #traffic-service has been that the officers considered themselves what #IAS are to the rest of the government. This has been vitiating railway working environment to great extent.

The service has always slithered away from shouldering responsibility of what mess railways are in. #Traffic is gate keeper of operations and commercial and call themselves bread winners. They must shoulder blame for inability to market the capacity and inability to operate the network optimally. Historically, bulk of revenue is out of single commodity i.e. #coal, which traditionally was from government mines to customers who are government enterprises. The traffic department could only operate in monopolistic market where they are only means to transport bulk over long distances.

Further, the talk of #mobility improvement has been on since decades. #Yards are key bottlenecks in mobility. However, the poor mobility discussions will usually target civil engineers and P.Way. It is conveniently forgotten that #yard-design is the role of operating department. Despite large investments, there is incremental improvement in mobility in most of the yards. It is time that the comparison of before and after is done and officers taken to task. After #LRDSS was sucked dry of its foreign visit potential, there is no modern planning tool which can optimally plan or operate the network.

Loss of modal share has been attributed to the engineers and network, whereas key responsibility lies at the hands of traffic #planning, #operations and #marketing. Poor yard designs have effectively killed benefits of multi-tracking in several cases-neutering the massive investments in infrastructure.

Look at the repertoire of traffic service. The position they want to hold on to is on very shaky ground. An average traffic officer does not possess any specialised skill to operate the network or market the capacity. Recent #Kanchenjunga express accident showed that operating department has different rules in different zones and could not handle failure of automatic signalling. Also following #Balasore one learnt that #StationWorkingRules are not updated.
Infact it has been routinely talked that, like ticket selling, capacity selling/marketing should be outsourced. To continually justify existence of such a large commercial department is increasingly untenable.

Further, with increasing computerisation, network management has to shift to computerised algorithms which schedule and run to save time and energy (like airlines and ships). In future #controllers will largely be overseeing physical movement as decided by the computer while the officers will be required in much smaller numbers. Unless IR plans to reduce the traditional role of operating officers in network management, the optimal utilisation of massive infra expenditure can not be ustilised.

IRTS needs to be trimmed down by more than two-third in medium term with long term be reduced to atleast three-fourths of existing numbers at all levels in most of the categories.

Indian Railway Accounts Service

The department perhaps had its utility long time back and surely is long past its use by date. Experts point that very few IRAS officers opt for costing roles. They also successfully delayed accounting computerisation which finally has happened. Like IRPS, large parts of IRTS and IRSS, there is not much meaningful work left for IRAS. Any organisational reform must do a critical analysis of role IRAS plays and why should it continue to be the #gatekeeper without any responsibility of outcomes.

Exploiting its #gatekeeper-role, IRAS kept creating posts for itself far in excess of its strength. Now situation is that board officers have failed to post officers in perceived difficult stations-giving rise to elitist character to these officers who are not required to get in to the rough and tumble of railways O&M.

IRAS needs to be trimmed by more than three-fourths in mid-term with long term numbers of cadre size to be 20% of existing. Belaboured justifications have stopped adding up to a cogent reason for its existence.

Sitting as a third member in a #Tender-committee can not be justification to have an organised service which always is on fast elevators of promotions with nil responsibility of delivery.
Contd…