No Sir, Its not Squaring One, IR is Worse than What it was Before the Fateful Parivartan Sangoshthi Happened, Part-3
In a series of reviews, also talked as u-turns, efforts have been made to go back to pre-December 2019 status. We wrote that this is not a reset, it is return to far worse situation that #IndianRailways (IR) was in 2019.
Earlier parts of the series can be seen here:
Golden Opportunity Squandered
The revert to five #Engineering-Services and three #Civil-Services is ill thought of and wasted golden opportunity of reform which would have been practical and addressed the correct disease. All that IR achieved was renaming of services and public embarrassment with loss of confidence without solving anything.
Key Problems that Needed Solutions
Sense of #entitlement, arbitrary decision making, unchecked #corruption, senior officers increasingly encouraging and initiating junior officers in to #corrupt practices, #caste affiliations, lack of #rotation, small zonal railways, excess of officers, corrupt to the core #Vigilance department, moribund administration not open to deputationists are but a few solvable problems which IR faces.
As we analysed in past-15 Feb 2023: “KMG-2.0: A cynic’s view – रेलवे के धनकुबेरों का सिंडीकेट”
There are several ways to analyse various services. One way is that #engineering services create capacity and #traffic markets and operates it, while #accounts maintain books and #personnel does HR for everyone.
However, cynics see things differently, they say railway services can be classified on two further ways. One, who takes bribes from whom and secondly, on skillset relevance & its fungibility.
We wrote on 15 Feb 2023, “A railway officer remarked that IR is desperately in need of #reform and refuses to accept the dichotomy based on #ESE vs #CSE paradigm. He summarises the web of railways organised services as under:
- Those who take money from contractors are engineering services,
- Those who take money from their customers is traffic service,
- Those who take money from own employees is personnel service,
- Those who are omnivores constitute Accounts, RPF and Medical services.
A cynical railway officer mentioned that IR desperately requires reform and should abandon the dichotomy between Engineering Services Exam (#ESE) and Civil Services Exam (#CSE) in career progression.”
This aspect was visited on 25 Mar: “Railways: What Needs to be Done Urgently”
Ignored Aspect of Rail Reform
Spate of #accidents has established that #railways run on fine balance of multi-dimensional inputs given by highly skilled hands.
One fact that severely limits civil service inductees is the fact that their #education and #jobs have no correlation. Further, in entire career, no specialised knowledge is needed to operate the railway or keep its books or perform HR function. Except that certain exam is cleared, entire career is then spent on following a time tested manual which subordinate staff knows by heart. None of the CSE inductees bear the direct brunt of operations. Yes, you heard it right, not even traffic department. Officers maintain that traffic keeps delegating the work and never gets answerable for the failures. The failures will stop at SM and ASM never beyond that. This retards them as they grow in their careers, as they never fight against limitations. There are few exceptions. #Engineers on the other hand become directly responsible for their #assets and cannot delegate.
But the situation is further complicated. Due to #outsourcing as propounded by infamous #advisor, very few engineers are interested in working on #track and #rollingstock-they revel in #contracts now. #Signalling in any case has slipped in to the hands of #OEMs with #IRSSE officers essentially working out #AMCs. However, fact remains that for making the #codes, #manuals, determining #Safety limits, senior engineers must take the journey from field. The pool of junior officers ideally should feed to create these senior decision makers for engineering aspects of railways.
So, what was the aspect that got ignored?
SudheerKumar as he claims in his #autobiography, “Never a Bystander”, was architect of the infamous #ParivartanShivir of December 2019. Instead of incremental but effective changes, he misdiagnosed the problems and attempted what is today understood as changing engines of a flying aircraft and crashing it in that attempt.
Had the powers that be, had some sense, and if they could think beyond their personal benefits, they would have readily identified that core of the railway problems can be traced to:
- Decisions to make #ZonalRailways smaller-this meant that for the same functions, there were more boundaries and more officers. Infact every department’s #SAG component went up between 2-3 times at the expense of #JAG component on upgradation.
- Creating #CEO concept-which broke the pride and back of Level-17 members.
- Decision to make selection of #DRM a function of Board instead that of a #GM when he chose his DS.
Having attacked #Level-17 successfully and tasted blood, these Khan Market Gangsters (#KMG) decided to attack Level-15, demoralise and disempower them. This made entire Level-15 to Level-17 either surplus on perpetual training or demoralised or disempowered. Model #SOP took financial powers from mature and experienced seniors in Zonal HQ to young officers of Divisions who needed to focus on #safety, #operation and #maintenance. The divisional officers also tasted financial powers which were available to Zonal HQ earlier. Surplus #HODs meant, #PHODs directly dealing with Branch Officers (#BOs) and HODs always scared about being sent on leave or training.
Last straw on camel’s back was creating #GatiShakti cells in divisions and making them #accountable to #RailwayBoard directly, weakening GMs further. Now GM unlike what was envisaged in Railway Act was a puny character having just few divisions and few hundred kilometre jurisdiction, his HODs were surplus with no financial powers. Perverse incentive was created where PHODs bypassed HODs and reached directly to Branch Officers who now had unimaginable financial powers.
Stage was set for perfect storm. And storm did hit and it hit very hard. The entire snobbery of RailBhawan’s Third Floor was washed out with Minister becoming laughing stock in the country with #accidents hitting on daily basis.
Having dismantled #RDSO and broken the back of upright and highly talented officers, there was no one left to advise seniors and act in the interest of IR. What #vendors wanted, vendors got. Unlike in past when vendors had influence in postings, now vendors started dictating terms and postings, and bought officers like #trimurti of board vigilance to fight their battles. Minister abandoned his flock.
No wonder that shining #corporate look 3rd Floor of #RailBhawan has to shoulder ignominy of all u-turns.
What could have been the alternative?
Several decisions need to undone, not just that taken in December 2019. #Decision to split the railways was key to several problems IR faces today. No meaningful #rotation can be done on smaller Zones. Railways like #ECR and #ProductionUnits are now cesspools of #corruption because of lack of meaningful rotation.
Skill set mapping is needed. #Stores, #HR and #Accounts function have become superfluous in current context. It is important that #HR and #Stores be made ex-cadre and existing officers get retrained for other functions. On accounts, computerisation has matured and using assistance of #CAG, this computerised system should be manned by effective section officers drawn from different services. Similarly, for role of accounts, officers from other services of other ministries need to be roped in. There are already several vacancies in the department.
For operating, there is urgent need to bring computers to schedule, give precedence, berthing slots in sidings and loop lines. This would take away lot of smugness in current officers. There is urgent need to get officers from armed forces in to operating department who will bring professional character to this stream of IR which is styled on zamindari system.
For telecom there is no doubt that there is need of officers from #DoT and officers from armed forces. In signalling gear maintenance we should see electrical officers from railways and officers from engineering cores of armed forces. In electrical engineering, officers from #CEA and #Power-PSUs need to be roped in.
Honest effort has to be made to empower and protect officers who can question and face vendors. But who will bell the cat? Unless these issues get tackled, no amount of reset can bail IR out. To Continue..