Railways seal new roles for top officers of restructured railway board

As part of its exercise to merge railways services and restructuring the railway board, the Centre has finalised the work allocation of its restructured Railway Board, with the Chairman and CEO in charge of key divisions including safety, human resources, security and infrastructure portfolios.

According to a railway board order reviewed by Hindustan Times, the Centre has also finalised Cadre Controlling Authorities (CCA) for existing railway services before its unified cadre Indian Railway Management Service becomes functional.

In December 2019, the Union Cabinet in a major move to reform the 150-year-old railway board of the Indian Railways, approved to restructure the apex body of the Indian Railways by trimming its strength to half, and unifying its eight railways services into a central service called the Indian Railway Management Service. The eight services that are being merged are: traffic, accounts, personnel, engineering, stores, electrical engineering, signal engineering and mechanical engineering.

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As the first Chief Operating Officer of the national carrier, the railway board chairman will be the cadre controlling officer responsible for Human resources (HR), with assistance from a DG (HR). The other portfolios, which have an overarching effect on the smooth running of railways and its immediate plans of modernization and have been entrusted with the CEO include; HR, safety, security, health, planning, infrastructure, vigilance, efficiency & research, public relations, heritage, secretary’s branches, transformation cell and ‘corporate coordination.’

The appointments committee of the cabinet (ACC) earlier this month had formally approved the restructuring of the Railway Board and approved the appointment of VK Yadav, the current chairman of the Railway Board as its first CEO.

With the new rearrangement, three apex level posts -- Member (Staff), Member (Engineering) and Member (Materials Management) in Railway Board have been surrendered and the post of Member (Rolling Stock) has been utilised for creation of the post of Director General (HR) in apex grade as per Cabinet Decision, the ACC said.

The Railway Board is the apex body of the Indian Railways which reports to the Parliament via the ministry of railways. It will now consist of four members and chairperson. It will be headed by the chairman who will also act as “Chief Executive Officer (CEO)” along with four members responsible for Infrastructure, Operations & Business Development, Rolling Stock and Finance respectively.

The board was earlier divided vertically among services, with each service having its own member. The chairman was the first among equals wherein the members were responsible for their own department and cadre. The members had autonomous powers and did not need to seek permission from the Chairman for key decisions including transfer and postings of personnel from their service.

According to the railway board order issued on Tuesday, the other members of the board including Member (Infrastructure) have been allotted work related to civil engineering, bridges, signal and telecom, land and amenities, station development and railway electrification. Member, Traction and Rolling Stock(TRS) ),Railway Board will be in charge of production units, mechanical workshops, coaches, train sets, maintenance of coaching stock among other things. Member, Operations and Business Development (O&BD), will be responsible for traffic transportation, coaching, tourism and catering commercial, non-fare revenue and marketing and business development. Member, Finance, will be in charge of all accounts and revenue.