This is all about HR management in Indian railway as reported by Bibek Debroy committee

1. Title : HR management in IR
Bibek Debroy Committee Report
Presentation by:
Devendra Kumar IRPS

2. TO BE DISCUSSED
 Basic Facts and Figure
 Single Largest Cost Component in IR
 Existing Position of HR in IR
 Graph on Management hierarchy
 Specialized Railway Services
 One Railway Service
 IRGMS
 Eligiblity Criteria
 Seniority etc.
 Manning, Posting and Career Progression
 Group “A” Services – Medical and RPF
 Solution of Medical Dept.

3. TO BE DISCUSSED
 Lateral Entry – Deputation in IR
 Ravamping of performance appraisal system
 Training and Re-Skilling
 Optimization of the size and skills of manpower in IR
 What is most draining in IR
 Essence – Draining and un-skill
 Earlist
 How to rationalize the HR
 CG (Compassionate Ground)
 LARSGESS
 Bungalow Peon – TADK

4. Basic Facts and figure
• IR is a complex, Matrix org multi-departmental,
and operational organization spread across the
country, with approximately 1.3 million
employees. There are about 400 different
categories of Group ‘C’ employees and 10 Group
‘A’ services, of which 8 are organized.
• HR aspect of IR have been extensively analyzed
by many expert committees key HR/organization
structure issues that exist today in IR need to be
addressed on a priority basis.

5. Single largest cost component in IR is
Human Resource
• Staff costs constituted 48% of Ordinary Working
Expenses and 34% of Gross Traffic Receipts. Pension
outgo and Staff Costs put together were 51.3% of
Gross Traffic Receipts. The staff costs have increased
from 2005-06 to 2014-15 (BE) at a CAGR (compound
annual growth rate) of 13%, and staff costs plus
pensions at 13.7%.
• “the current structure encourages excessive
departmentalism at the management level and often leads
to priorities being set not for the organisation as a whole,
but on departmental considerations”(page 62 Human‐
Resources Management,NTDPC Railways report )‐

6. The existing position of HR at TOP 8
GP ‘A’ organized service.
IRAS IRPS IRTS IRSE IRSS
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IRSE
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IRSM
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IRS
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DR OF Gr A by
UPSC civil service
DR OF Gr A by UPSC Engg service
exam
NTDPC–Railways report: The most recent NTDPC-Railways Report
also emphasizes on the need to significantly rationalize the existing
multiple services and cadres of the Railways. It recommended that
the services should be merged into two cadres Civil Engineering &
S&T services, Mechanical & Electrical services be merged, with the
role of Personnel and Stores service being carried out by the
executive accountable for the output.

7. Specialization decreases as we move
up the hierarchy

10. “one Railway service” option would require a very diverse set
of skills and competencies to be available in a directly
recruited candidate, which is not an optimum situation, and
could certainly not provide the optimal mix of the kind of
professionalism and broad base required. Furthermore,
attaining proficiency in such diverse areas for existing officers
and those that are promoted from Group ‘B’ may also not be
feasible
The grouping of services will also result in an elimination of
the multiplicity of activities and redundancies, thereby
increasing efficiency and freeing resources that can be utilized
more effectively.
One Railway Service

11. New cadre – a General
Management cadre (IRGMS)
• Creation of a General Management Service: IR
has a large number of General
• management posts such as ADRM, DRM at the
Divisional level, AGM, SDGM and GM at the
Zonal level, and a few posts in the Railway Board
office also.
• IRGMS will also ensure that effective
coordination between the two services (IRLogS
and IRTechS) is achieved and the various
departments together work for common
organizational objectives and priorities rather
than those of any particular department.

12. IRGMS -Eligibility criteria
• While it is recommended that the selection to
IRGMS be conducted for officers completing
• 13 years of service (at the time of grant of Non-
Functional Selection Grade), opportunity to
existing officers with service more than 14 years
also needs to be provided
• For this purpose it is recommended that
• (a) all officers less than 52 years of age (eligibility
criterion for posting as DRM) but having service
of more than 14 years should also be screened
for the IRGMS as a one-time exercise at the
initial stage

13. IRGMS -Eligibility criteria
• (b) Officers who have already worked in
General Management posts of ADRM,
DRM, AGM, SDGM, GM should also be
screened for selection to IRGMS.
• (c) There should be no quotas for officers
of any of the existing services, nor should
any other artificial barriers be permitted,
and equal opportunity should be made
available to officers of all organized
Group ‘A’ services

14. IRGMS -Eligibility criteria
• (d) From an implementation point of view, officers
can be segregated in terms of broad range of length
of service corresponding to the age/experience
eligibility criterion of different General Management
posts and these officers should compete for General
management posts for which they are eligible. The
zone of consideration can be initially kept at three
times the number of posts and later refined based on
experience. A merged/inter se seniority of officers
will be used for short listing officers for inclusion in
the zone of consideration.
• (e) Given the large number of Group ‘A’ officers, the
number of opportunities to beprovided to the
officers for induction into IRGMS should be
restricted to two only.

15. IRGMS -Eligibility criteria
• For officers with length of service less than 14 years, the two
chances will be provided in their 14th and 18th year of
service and for others, the gap in the two opportunities
should be either 3 years, or upon becoming eligible for next
level of General Management post
• (f) To ensure credibility of the system, it is strongly
recommended that the Ministry of Railways should not allow
any relaxations of norms once decided, on a case to case
basis, unless there is genuine requirement arising out of
circumstances, warranting change.
• Mandatory consultation with DOP&T/UPSC will ensure
departures on trivial low-merit grounds being eliminated.

16. Seniority etc
Fixation o
work out the common inter se seniority of
Group ‘A’ officers of the two services
(IRLogS & IRTechS). This should be worked
out in detailed consultation with UPSC
and domain experts.f inter se seniority:

17. Manning, Posting and Career
progression:
The officers in the two services, IRLogS
and IRTechS, will progress in their cadre
and will undergo compulsory job/function
rotations
within a specified period of time, so as to
gain competency in all the functions
within the domain of the sub-group

18. Group ‘A’ services – Medical Service
&Railway Protection Force (RPF)
• IR has 125 hospitals, 586 health units/polyclinics
and 14,000 beds for patient care. There are
2,600 doctors and about 54,000 paramedical
staff.
• Yet, IR has recognized 250 private and
Government hospitals for referral of their
patients, resulting in a double whammy for the
finances of IR. The overall level of satisfaction
amongst beneficiaries of Railway Health services
is low.

19. Solution of medical department
• IR should endeavor to find partners in the private
• sector to collaborate through more optimum use of its available healthcare
infrastructure
• for a larger pool of patients, including Railway Healthcare beneficiaries. Broadly, a
• hospital could be offered to a private party on a long term lease of say 30 years,
who will
• be responsible for running it. The private partner could make incremental
investments to
• augment the infrastructure. In return, the private partner will be obliged to
provide high
• quality healthcare to Railway beneficiaries free of cost, while charging at market
• determined rates from others. The Railway doctors and paramedical staff would
be given
• an option either to continue to draw their salary at Railway rates, charged to the
private
• management, or to get absorbed in the private management’s cadre.

20. Lateral entry: Deputation in IR
• Consequently, IR
• suffers from inbreeding and is deprived of the benefit
of services of officers with a wider set of
competencies and varied experience.
• As such, this Committee is of the view that lateral
movement of officers, both from outside to IR and
from IR to outside, should be encouraged, without
adversely impacting delivery of Railway services.
• The lateral entry/movement should be permitted both
in non-technical and technical departments,
respectively based on the Central Staffing Scheme
pattern.

21. Revamping the performance
appraisal system
• This Committee is of the view that the current performance
assessment system, which was introduced recently in IR, is
woefully lacking, and as a result it is not surprising that most
of employees are assessed as ‘outstanding’ with little or no
relationship with their actual performance and achievements.
• It is felt that in order to achieve this, competent superiors
goes through available performance records etc., or even
interacts with the reported official if necessary, and records
a comprehensive and objective assessment (for example, 360
degree assessment).
• Such assessment systems must also encompass annual
performance target setting, target ownership (owned by the
assessee), periodical performance reviews, corrective action
and an independent/objective review system.

23. Training and re-skilling
• Training, re-skilling and imparting newer set of
competencies to employees will be some of the
most critical activities upon which the success of
all other the key recommendations of
organizational restructuring will depend.
• In addition, new functions like providing door to
door transportation solutions through inter-
modal tie ups, terminal (station) management and
services etc. will be required to be carried out.
This is equally true of finance and personnel
departments.

24. Optimization of the size and skills of
manpower in IR
• The staff cost (including pensions) is the single
most significant expenditure item accounting for
the lionIn order to arrive at possible options for
rationalization of manpower costs, an analysis of
manpower/staff strength, job positions,
• Organizational structures, productivity levels,
systems and processes etc. currently existing
in IR need to be undertaken’s share in IR’s total
expenditure.

25. What is draining most to IR
IR data relating to the various erstwhile Group ‘D’ categories
indicates that as on 1st
October 2014, there were approximately 5.7
lakh sanctioned posts and 4.7 lakh employees on rolls belonging to
these categories in the open-line set up (this does not include staff
of Production Units and “other units”).
Further, information gathered from IR also reveals that a large
number of these categories still continue to carry out jobs and
responsibilities that are now quite obsolete, for instance Bhisty,
Mochi, Sarang, dhobi etc. Moreover, the work performed by a large
number of these categories can easily be outsourced at much
cheaper rates as the cost of manpower for performing these tasks
in the private sector is much lower. It is also evident that the
responsibilities of many of these categories can be combined
through multi-skilling and multi-tasking.

26. Essence -Draining and un-skill
• This Committee noted that although the erstwhile Group
‘D’ categories have been merged and granted the lowest
Group ‘C’ Pay Band and Grade Pay by the 6th Central Pay
• Commission, most of the employees in these categories
continue to perform the same functions, with practically no
change in their responsibilities, skill sets and competencies.
• As such, IR suffers from a double whammy in the sense
that these categories constitute the largest chunk of IR
employees, and the cost-to-company of this category of
employees has become significantly higher than the market
valuation of job/tasks carried out by these employees.

27. Why so much earlist while GP ‘D’in IR
( 4.7 lakh employees )
Despite significant technological
improvements and automation in many
areas in IR, there has not been
commensurate rationalization of staff.
different stakeholders indicates that
pressure groups, narrow departmental
outlook and lack of will on the part of IR
management have created such a
situation.

28. How to rationalized the HR
This Committee feels that IR will need to adopt policies and
strategies aimed at rationalization in the number of
employees in these categories by:
(a) carrying out an exhaustive independent work study to
arrive at the optimal number of staff required and
laying down yardsticks for different activities (the
existing yardsticks are nonscientific, oriented
towards furthering departmental empires & do not
recognize impact of technological up-gradation);
(b) simplifying processes, streamlining systems, rationalizing
and discontinuing obsolete and low value adding
activities;
(c) reducing number of peons, khalasis and other such
categories through rightsizing and outsourcing;

29. How to rationalized the HR …..
(d) Discounting and eliminating a number of obsolete Group
‘D’ categories that are no longer relevant (box porter etc.);
and
(e) taking steps to increase the output of such staff at the
relatively
lower levels whose functions are linked to safety (e.g.
gangmen, trolley-men etc through multi-tasking, adoption
of better technology, retraining and efficiency enhancing
measures etc.). Further, in order to achieve rationalization
of the erstwhile Group ‘D’ low skill categories, IR should
immediately very strictly regulate recruitment to these
categories and adopt policies for redeployment of existing
manpower wherever possible, and retraining the remaining
to enhance efficiency.

30. CG (Compassionate Ground)
• Committee observed that a significantly large number
of persons are recruited to unskilled/low skill
categories through some practices of IR that prevent
open market competitive recruitment.
• As a result, not only does IR end up diluting the
quality of manpower recruited, this also dilutes the
principles of equal opportunity for employment in the
Government that is guaranteed by the Constitution.
• CG must be offered to the best suited member of
the family and the person so appointed shall have to
get the appointment ‘ratified’ within a reasonable
period of, say two years, by qualifying in the
recruitment examination prescribed for that
category.

31. LARSGESS i.e ultra vires
• This scheme has come under judicial criticism (by
various CAT benches at Jaipur, New Delhi and
Patna) and has been declared ultra vires of the
provisions of the
Constitution (Articles 14 and 16).
• Committee is of the view that while the scheme
may have been started with a good intention of
enhancing safety, substantial dilution in the norms
and scope of the original scheme have now led to
a situation where this is now coming under
severe judicial scrutiny and criticism.

32. LARSGESS i.e ultra vires
• As such, this Committee feels that this
scheme needs to be reviewed ab initio.
• In the interim, as suggested in the case of CG
appointments, persons recruited through this
route should be required to get their
appointment ‘ratified’ within a reasonable
period of, say two years, by qualifying in the
recruitment examination prescribed for that
category. Further, it was noted that

33. Bungalow peon -TADK
• Historically in IR, due to the nature of job of field officers that
requires their 24x7 availability, a Dak cum telephone attendant
(popularly called bungalow peon) has been traditionally provided to
senior officers (JAG and above) to assist them in official work at
their residence.
• However, this practice got liberalized over time, and TADKs are
provided to all JAG and above officers. The TADKs are appointed
based on the basis of recommendations of the concerned officer,
and join Railways initially as temporary employees in PB 1 with a
gross pay of Rs 1800. On the completion of three years of
satisfactory service, these bungalow peons are absorbed as regular
employees.
• This arrangement has been under criticism since the 4th
Pay
Commission and needs to be reviewed dispassionately for its
discontinuation.
• When IR decides to discontinue this scheme, the existing TADKs
should be retrained and deployed gainfully in the system.

34. • The changes proposed in this Chapter are
thus a prerequisite to the bifurcation. Once
the other changes come into effect and the
bifurcated parts of IR begin to function
according to commercial principles, IR
recruitment (in the Railway Infrastructure
Company as well as that part of IR which
operates trains) Both units should be free to
hire from wherever they wish, following
whatever channel they wish.
• To get to that desired destination, one
needs to fix both HR and finances.

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