The Government’s Himalayan Blunder
We wish the young graduates and post graduates of GSV who had their convocation on July 27, 2025, all the very best for their future. We wonder, how can small campus of Railway Staff College which got named as #NAIR subsequently, accommodate thousands of students and give them the space which even small state engineering colleges gives?
If GoI really wanted to make a railway themed university, then current GSV like IRMS, Station Development, Gati Shakti Units, EnHM, 2×25, High Rise OHE is going to inflict long term pain. Anything that now gets done will be a band-aid solution which will never ever do justice to youngsters in the University.
But in the process as roust as IRMS-today there is no Staff College left for the vaunted services of Ministry of Railways in above roust corrected as robust. All the reform of IRMS now has been reduced to put service name in a bracket. Failing even to reduce the number of services-a shame.
It is said the decline started when NAIR lost the character of a Staff College. Whosoever thought of this change of name would not have even imagined what forces this change of name unleashed. That is now a matter for rail historians to dig in to.
Today, while IR struggles to keep trains on tracks, stink from stations and coach toilets have a story to tell. A Cuddalore, a Balasore, a Cherlapalli, a Madurai. Each has a story to tell. There is no academy left with IR for higher management training-a role which Railway Staff College played since independence.
AMP, MDP, FP, IP happened in shadow of titans of IR management-people who had some spine and character left. These people carried heft to engage with DRMs and GMs-train them and occasionally get retried seniors to hold them accountable over tea breaks on uncomfortable questions.
Does Ministry have an answer for this-the very thought of East India Company model of management-when rulers were there but notionally, has crept in every branch, training included. By taking training away from in-house experts, IR is bereft of people who were looked up to by juniors in the field when they needed a friend or a guide and at times a philosopher who could have helped them to handle mountain load of challenges.
Most of the railway officers are pushed head long in to field and make a life and raise a family in pressures which are unique. These officers have traditionally turned to their faculty in railway academies for professional and personal mentoring.
Alas, न खुदा ही मिला न विसाल-ए-सनम, न इधर के हुए न उधर के हुए हम। Something like this happened in Railway Staff College-a unit too small for being a university, but which was adequate for being a Staff College exists no more. Just by constructing a corporate style tower, a university is not built. Getting few retired railway officers does not bring domain expertise. Talking to few officers who participated in review in former Railway Staff College campus on July 27, we learnt that each one of them felt sadness and silently anguished. Each officer who was in campus today felt betrayed.
Misappropriation of #RSC is singular act which will now go down in history as IR’s lowest point. For some this Himalayan Blunder is akin to Indian capitulation in NEFA in 1962 war. We believe in the political leadership’s earnestness to help railways as is evident by the investment that has been poured in. But the advisors it chose and trusted, instead has broken hearts of all serving and retired officers.
The academy they called their own-irrespective of the service they belonged to has been misappropriated. For the PM’s vision of silo-less, one-government approach, RSC was a living testament of what is possible No wonder its murder perhaps was prerequisite to usher in East India Company Model of Management (#EICMoM).
How would #IAS officers react if #LBSNAA gets appropriated for something else or #IPS officers react if #NPA gets used for something else? These are not buildings, these are the vertebrae of spine of Indian State.