Railway Training Still Carries the Weight of a Reversed Reform

Experts feel that, given the experience with Gati Shakti Vishwavidyalaya, it is impractical to expect this university or any management institute to replace a railway staff college

Officer trainees recruited by the Union Public Service Commission (#UPSC) will join the training academies in a few months. Among them are officers of the railway engineering services, who return to the system after a gap of about six years. For six years, the UPSC recruited no engineers for Indian Railways. This happened even though Indian Railways is one of the largest heavy engineering organisations in the world, and supplies engineering talent to metro rail and RRTS projects.

Yet even after splitting the recruits along the old verticals, the Railway Board has not removed the six months it added to the conventional 18-month probationary training. This extension was meant to deliver a bridge course. The hope was that it could give a law or arts or commerce graduate the substance of a four-year engineering degree. One used to wonder how an oficer who had not studied mathematics, physics and chemistry after class X will sign off engineering drawings, specify, order and accept rolling stock.

Experts are puzzled. The government has reversed its decision to create a unified Indian Railway Management Service (#IRMS), yet the six-month padding of the 18-month probation survives. This shows the confusion in the Railway Board’s HR Directorate, which handles probationer training.

Officers recruited by the UPSC are an expensive resource. They must reach the field at the earliest date. Experts feel the training should be cut to 15 months. #Railwhispers agrees with them. It appeals to the Ministry of Railways and the DoPT to rationalise the training of railway officers recruited through the UPSC.

Experts also feel that, given the experience with Gati Shakti Vishwavidyalaya, it is impractical to expect this university or any management institute to replace a railway staff college. The government has acted wisely in reversing the damaging decisions. It should now seriously consider setting up a dedicated staff college.

The troubles of companies such as Boeing and General Electric, and the challenges faced by artificial intelligence companies, show that government training must stay separate from corporate training. Any confusion on this point will cause irreversible damage to Indian Railways.