Railways to initiate rationalisation study for officers

In a major decision aimed at rationalising manpower, the Ministry of Railways is in the process of identifying one of the big four audit companies among EY, PwC, Deloitte or KPMG to study rationalisation of the gazetted manpower across the Indian Railways. Also, given the technological development and changes in operational and maintenance practices, what should be the optimal level of gazetted manpower of railways in coming years, said Pradeep Kumar, Member-Staff of Railway Board, while addressing a press conference on Tuesday.

Spelling out the plans of Railway Ministry, Kumar said: “The audit will begin this year by associating professional consultant for undertaking detailed HR evaluation and the two HR modules to be considered would be recruitment on Indian Railways and system of selection and promotion.”

“Standing committee for HR benchmarking has been constituted which would do a preliminary analysis for various activities in identified areas department-wise in one or two key areas for undertaking <g data-gr-id="23">holistic</g> review of manpower deployment. We are getting an external firm to do the <g data-gr-id="29">bench-marking</g> for us along with the international standards,” said Kumar.

Kumar shared data on the number of applicants for the post of <g data-gr-id="34">loco-pilots</g>, which basically shows that applications for about the same or lesser of posts have almost doubled over the last two-three years. This can be taken as an indicator of unemployment levels in our country though, Kumar maintained that the “quantum jump in <g data-gr-id="32">number</g> of applicants shows the faith of candidates in the railway examination system.”

In 2010, for 23,324 posts, there were 12.2 lakh applicants, of which 4.9 lakh candidates appeared in the exam. In 2012, there were 29,184 posts, for which there were 13.06 lakh applicants and 7.01 lakh candidates took the exams. In 2014, there were 26,567 posts, for which there were 31.88 lakh applicants and 15.01 candidates took the exam. The Railways also plans to start taking online examinations, starting with two categories, which will be further widened later.