In U-turn, Railways reverts to pre-Dec 2019 hiring model

NEW DELHI: Nearly five years after Cabinet nod for the biggest manpower reform in railways to merge eight services into one ( IRMS ), govt is now going back to the pre-Dec 2019 regime to recruit officers through two separate exams - civil and engineering - conducted by the UPSC , from this year. This, officials said, is "almost taking a U-turn" on what govt had approved in Dec 2019 as part of its efforts to end departmentalism within the railway bureaucracy.

The latest move comes after the railways struggled to get enough fresh technical manpower through Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS) over the last two years. Railways has now sought to recruit 225 engineers through Civil Services Examination ( CSE ) 2025 for which applications will be invited.

On Saturday, Centre's department of personnel and trainning ( DoPT ) approved "in-principle" the proposal to hire via CSE and Engineering Services Examination (ESE) "considering the unique requirement of both technical and non-technical manpower" in the ministry. DoPT decided on the issue within two days of railways sending the proposal on Thursday.

Under IRMS, there was one exam and the eligibility criteria was the same for all applicants from both technical and non-technical backgrounds.

Within hours of the go ahead, railways wrote to UPSC and department of telecom (DoT), mentioning that the latter being the nodal agency for ESE has notified the rules and has sought applications by Tuesday. It requested DoT and UPSC to include indent for 225 railway engineers by adding to existing notification and to extend the deadline for submission of applications.

The new recruits will be called IRMS (Civil), IRMS (Mechanical), IRMS (Electrical), IRMS (S&T) and IRMS (Stores). Earlier the prefix for these services was Indian Railway.

"The fresh move is nothing but going back to the old days. IRMS in railways is not working considering the functional requirement of manpower. Can a student with a history background be tasked to deal with laying of tracks? Govt has realised that the highly technical organisation can't function with generalists. This is good for railways," said a senior official.

While giving a green light to the proposal, DoPT said, "The proposed scheme of recruitment shall not in any way, be in contravention to the decisions of cabinet Dec 24, 2019 (read merger of services to IRMS)."

Sources said considering this, the railways has not abandoned IRMS and has instead created different disciplines under it, such as civil, mechanical, and electrical.