NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet on Tuesday approved the restructuring of Railway Board by the unification of eight railway services. This implies that the Railways will no longer be organised on departmental lines, and will be replaced with a leaner structure organised on functional lines.
According to the decision, the existing eight group A services of the Railways will be reorganised into a central service called Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS). Creation of the new service will be done in consultation with DoPT and UPSC to facilitate recruitment in the next recruitment year.
Railway officers come from eight departments — traffic, civil, mechanical, electrical, signal & telecom, stores, personnel and accounts and these departments are vertically separated from top to bottom and are headed by a secretary-level officer in the Railway Board.
“This organisation of the department runs deep down to the grassroots level of the Railways. Unification of services will end this departmentalism, promote the smooth working of Railways, expedite decision making, create a coherent vision for the organisation and promote rational decision making,” said a railway officer.
Now, the Railway board will have a chairman, who will act as the ‘chief executive officer’ along with four members responsible for infrastructure, operations & business development, rolling stock and finance respectively. Three apex level posts shall be surrendered from the board.