New Delhi: Ten days after it was approved, the Ministry of Railways has not yet implemented its “immediate” order to rationalise and prune the rail bureaucracy.
On 30 September, the ministry, headed by Piyush Goyal, issued an order listing 24 posts that were to be removed from the Railway Board, as part of an attempt to have a leaner rail bureaucracy.
However, according to sources in the ministry, the order has been put on hold after staff members questioned the move.
“A lot of officers started asking, who will do the work if you keep getting rid of the posts? Each officer has a role. These are not idle posts,” said a senior official in the ministry.
A second senior officer confirmed that, even though the order had the approval of Goyal, it was put on hold by Railway Board chairman V.K. Yadav after questions were raised by officers.
Railways ministry spokesperson D.J. Narain, however, denied the claim. “Nothing has been put in abeyance. Things and decisions often take their course in Covid times. It is best not to speculate,” the spokesperson said.
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On a pruning drive
The 30 September order, which has been accessed by ThePrint, said, “The work of the aforesaid transferred posts will be re-distributed by the Cadre Controlling Authorities (CCAs) amongst the existing officers.
“After incorporating these changes, the strength of the 10 organised services in Railway Board will be reduced from 160 to 136,” it said. “There will be a reduction of 24 posts in Railway Board.”
Titled “Rationalisation of posts of Organised Railway Services in Board’s Office”, the order also said these posts should be removed with “immediate effect”.
Although unusual by government standards, sources said “immediate effect” meant that the decision had to be implemented within days.
Last year, Goyal had reportedly asked the Board to prune the rail bureaucracy — one of the largest in any ministry — since multiple officers were believed to be looking after the same or similar functions.
The staff strength of the ministry was about 200 officials at the time, which was brought down to 160 in 2019 by transferring 40 officers of the director level and above to zonal railways.
In 2017, Goyal had said, “We have decided to cut the existing size of officials in Railway Board. The idea is to put them to field work to ensure better services and enhanced railway safety. The strength in Railway Ministry will be reduced and their role will be confined to monitoring and major policymaking.”
The move was part of a larger attempt to “decentralise” the railways, and strengthen field operations instead.
While the Modi government has sought to reform the functioning of the Railway Board over the last few years with several reforms such as restructuring and corporatising, merger of railway services, etc, the rail bureaucracy has resisted several of these attempts.
The ministry has set November as deadline for the most controversial of the decisions, that is, the merger of railway services.
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