Muddled Reforms: Indian Railways Management Service is a train to nowhere

The Union Cabinet approved the creation of Indian Railways Management Service by merging eight services on December 24, 2019.

The Indian Railways (IR) has finally sent an indent to the Union Public Service Commission to recruit 150 Indian Railways Management Service (IRMS) officers through a separate IRMS examination. To mollify railway unions, 50% of junior scale vacancies will be filled through IRMS and the balance by promotion from ranks. However, the IRMS has been badly conceived and its execution is poor.

In the Making for Three Decades

The IRMS has been in the making for 28 years. It was conceived first by the Prakash Tandon Committee (1994) and endorsed by the Rakesh Mohan Committee (2001), Sam Pitroda Committee (2012) and Bibek Debroy Committee (2015). The Union Cabinet approved the creation of IRMS by merging eight services on December 24, 2019.

The current framework of the IRMS will fail to solve the IR’s deep-rooted silo culture and instead will usher in an era of chaos. It will also prevent the best talent from joining the IR. Here’s why.

Firstly, the IR has ignored the fine print of the Debroy committee recommendations which called for the consolidation and merger of eight Group A services into two services. The committee had suggested the creation of the Indian Railway Technical Service (IRTechS) by merging five technical services and the Indian Railway Logistics Service (IRLogS) by merging three non-technical services.

To traverse the path charted out by Debroy, the IR had to simply recruit unified IRLogS officers through the Indian civil services exam and unified IRTechS officers through the Indian engineering services exam. There was no need to reinvent the wheel.

Secondly, silos are not the sole preserve of the IR. Silos are the nemesis of the best Fortune 500 companies. Even Prime Minister Modi manages silos - 58 ministries. If the Railway Board CEO is service and people-oriented and is focused on results, silos are bound to crumble.

In the past, the Railway Board had chairpersons like Mohinder Singh Gujral, who transformed the IR silos into a winning team. It is the same silo-bred railwaymen who executed the audacious dream of building the Konkan Railway. Turbocharged by the towering leadership of E Sreedharan, who later came to be known as the Metro-man, I as a junior officer managed to raise Rs 2,600 crore from the domestic and international market to complete this marque project in record time. Also, railway men from the Integral Coach Factory (ICF), led by iconoclast Sudhanshu Mani, created the Vande Bharat Trains. India’s metro rail revolution was handiwork railwaymen, led by Sreedharan. Thus, it has been amply demonstrated that empowered top management can end the IR’s silo culture.

The breaking of silos is needed at every juncture, at the unwieldy railway board, zonal railway and divisions offices and stations.

Thirdly, the IRMS has no place for bureaucrats cut in the mould of TN Seshan, Mohinder Singh Gujral, Y Venugopal Reddy, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Amitabh Kant. The IRMS is looking to recruit only engineering and commerce graduates and chartered accountants. Even those who studied at venerable institutions such as Harvard, Wharton and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad are not eligible to join the IRMS.

Fourthly, IRMS is like the proverbial “Birbal’s Khichdi” that shall never be cooked. Its exam pattern is neither similar to that of civil services nor engineering services. The IRMS main exam is designed to be a poor cousin of the civil services exam. Aspirants are, however, required to appear for the civil services prelims. This will not help the IR attract either good bureaucrats or able technocrats.

Worse, a resolution of the complex problem of inter se seniority of the 7,500 serving railway officers is nowhere in sight.

Time for Structural Reforms

The IR is in dire need of substantive structural reforms, to make it a leaner and more efficient organisation. Here are the reforms that are required to be taken up on a priority basis.

One, separate policymaking, regulation and operations. The ministry (Railway Board) must confine itself to policy matters, independent regulator (s) should regulate, and railway zones, divisions and companies should operate, maintain and manage the railways.

Two, mothball unwanted projects worth lakhs of crore rupees, sanctioned to suit political expediency. The IR needs a robust new architecture to fast-track project execution in a mission mode. The prevalent paradigm of construction through zonal railways has not delivered the desired results.

Three, the IR should focus on core business and noncore activities such as running schools, colleges, and hospitals and the police force should be divested on a war footing.

Four, all production units should be consolidated under unitary control to ensure better control, management, coordination and infusion of state-of-the-art technology.

Five, the number of zones and divisions needs to be rationalised. The IR today is a complex cobweb of 19 zones and 70 divisions. It should be pruned to five zones and twenty divisions with a focus on operational ease, efficiency and effectiveness.

Six, to jumpstart execution speed, efficiency and quality, the IR must merge zonal construction units with IRCON and RVNL.

Lastly, implement the 2014 Sreedharan Committee recommendation on the cessation of tendering work by the Railway Board and transferring it to zones,  divisions and production units. The Railway Board continues to finalise nearly 50 percent of all tenders, purportedly to achieve economies of scale.

If the IR is to be saved, Railway Board must cede tendering powers and focus on its core job of policy-making for which it was created on recommendations of the Robertson Committee of 1903.

Akhileshwar Sahay is a Multidisciplinary Thought Leader and Impact Consultant. He works as President, Advisory Services of Consulting Company BARSYL. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.