Restructured Rly Board to have 5 members: Goyal

The restructuring will see creation of an Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS) that will merge eight difference services in the public sector transport behemoth at present. 

“This historic reform will go a long way in achieving Government’s vision of making Indian Railways the growth engine of India’s vikas yatra,” Railway Minister Piyush Goyal told the media after the Cabinet meeting. He said all senior officials and members of the Board numbering about 1,200, including 400 of them over video conferencing, discussed the issue on December 6 and 7 and wholeheartedly endorsed the merger of all the services into the proposed IRMS. He said this would put the organisation on the path of high growth trajectory.  The Railway Board, which now has 10 members including the Chairman, would now have five members with a Chairman, who will also be designated as Chief Executive Officer.

The four members will be in charge of infrastructure, rolling stock, finance and operation and business development.  Members from all streams of the service would have the opportunity of becoming the Board Chairman, Goyal said adding 27 Zonal General Managers and heads of various production units will be upgraded to the apex grade in service to the level of a Secretary of the Government of India. “The restructuring will ensure end of departmentalism and smooth operations,” Goyal said.

Sources said this was done to ensure the end of turf wars among the different cadres and departments which was harming railway operations. Restructuring of the Railway Board was also recommended by the Bibek Debroy Committee on Indian Railways in 2015.The panel said in its report that the Indian Railways’ centralised structure and departmentalisation was adversely affecting the Railways’ work culture .

The Union Cabinet on Tuesday approved the Atal Bhujal Yojana, a Rs 6,000 crore scheme for sustainable management of ground water resources, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said.

The scheme will cover 8,350 villages of Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, he said.

The scheme envisages active participation of the communities in various activities such as formation of water user associations, monitoring and disseminating ground water data, water budgeting, preparation and implementation of gram panchayat-wise water security plans and information, education and communication (IEC) activities related to sustainable ground water management.