Various wings of the Indian Railways need to coordinate amongst themselves for the translation of their recent decentralisation efforts to palpable results.
Much has been written about the short tenure of CRB and railway board (RB) members to effectively plan, implement and showcase the results during their tenure. However, there are two major issues associated with the tenure of RB chairman and members and the role of RB in nurturing talent, providing autonomy and achieving fast-track growth of Indian Railways.
The first issue is with respect to the tenure for RB chairman and its members. The tenure of chairman and members of RB is about four to five years with a clear mandate on deliverables not only based on the seniority and integrity of the officers but also on what they have accomplished as change agent in the past and what drastic improvement they commit to do if they are made part of RB. For instance, had the current CRB been given the responsibility with an unambiguous term of 43 months, he would have prepared himself mentally to carry out his assignment.
The second issue is to understand why class one officers should be crazy to occupy RB and how to mitigate this craziness. tHE craze becomes desperation, as the authority enjoyed by the RB is much more than the authority enjoyed by such senior bureaucrats in other ministries in relation with the authority enjoyed by the junior and middle level bureaucracy. If we speak to any retired or senior IAS or IPS officer, he would fondly recollect his sense of accomplishment during his initial or middle years of service and how he was able to bring change in his territory with the autonomy, authority and responsibility. Apart from duties and responsibilities cut out for them, it is a million dollar question whether class one officers of IR at the junior and middle level are given roles where they can bring about a change which is palpable to the stakeholders Otherwise, why rail passengers have been put up with such messy and unclean railway stations, and dirty coaches for decades, when IR employs about 7,000 class one officers If enough opportunity is given for class one officers to function as change agents, the desperation to become part of RB would certainly reduce.
Things have been changing faster in the last two years towards decentralisation and giving autonomy, authority and responsibility down the line. The railway minister empowered GMs and DRMs to finalise tenders on their own, reducing the tender processing time from three years to six months. He also created incentive system for faster completion of projects. General managers of rail coach/locomotive factories have also been asked to report directly to CRB. Mobility directorate created as a part of cross-functional directorates to focus on speed enhancement of train movement would be under the direct supervision of CRB. The IR also decided to appoint some class one officers as station managers of A1 category stations, where the officers would work for the maintenance and upkeep of stations which involves direct interface with the public.
Given these measures of decentralisation, any one would expect that IR would progress on fast-track in the years to come. However, it may not happen.
IR is a highly interlocked system. Although IR developed uniform standards across the country to a great extent, smaller changes even need to be verified for interoperability with other departments, other zones and public sector units that supply various items for IR, RDSO, etc. Coordination between various wings of IR is a prerequisite for the translation of their recent decentralisation efforts to palpable results. For example, non-fare box revenues would be generated only if all departments find ways to accommodate large-scale advertisement without their respective functions and safety aspects hindered. However, in one incident, RB demanded that only Indian Engineering Services should be used to select class one officers as IR is essentially an engineering organisation, which was vehemently opposed by class one officers selected through civil services exam. The other incident is that although the share of electric locomotives is on the increase in IR, the transfer of staff from diesel locomotives section to electric locomotives section has not been smooth.
So, extending cooperation to other departments in achieving the larger goals of IR should find a significant place in performance, evaluation and appraisal of every department and employee as much as their own duties and responsibilities. Without incorporating interdepartmental obligations in its performance measurement system, IR cannot expect its recent decentralisation measures to fructify.
The author is a doctorate in public systems from IIM Ahmedabad and currently teaches at TAPMI, Manipal. The views here are personal.
