NEW DELHI: With Bibek Debroy Panel suggesting rationalisng the number of employees working in Railways to help limit the public sector giant’s single most significant expenditure item, four human resource audit companies have been entrusted with the task.
They include Earnst and Young, Deloitte, Price Cooper Waterhouse and KPMG, according to Railway Board Member (Staff) Pradeep Kumar.
One of these companies will be entrusted with the job of studying the entire gazetted staff and non-gazetted strength whose strength is around 13.36 lakh.
These companies will examine the Railways’ manpower given the technological development and changes in operational and maintenance practices and determine the optimal level of the staff strength in the coming years. “We will also hire a reputed consultant to examine the strength in non-gazetted section to study the system and requirement and see if there is any extra flab,” he said, adding that Railways will also take into account the international benchmarks before deciding on the issue.
Debroy Panel, which submitted its final report last week, found that large number of Group D employees still continue to carry out jobs and responsibilities that are now quite obsolete, for instance Bhisty, Mochi, Sarang, dhobi etc and the provision of telephone attendant cum dak khalasi (TADK) needs to be reviewed dispassionately for its discontinuation.
Kumar, however,said that these Group D staffers will continue to work in Railways when asked if they would be retained as domestic staff at officers’ bungalows.
“There is a need for it as Railways functions round-the- clock,” he said. To ensure transparency in appointments in Railways, it has been decided to conduct all examinations online as a foolproof measure against malpractices. He said as a major IT initiative, online applications were introduced in two recent exams to fill up the 6,000 posts of Senior Section Engineers/ Junior Engineers (SSEs/JEs) and Paramedical categories respectively to ensure transparency and certainty in the recruitment process.