Trouble over cadre merger move: Railways civil service probationers to seek re-allotment

“The IRMS, the way it is conceived, is not what we signed up for. We want to join some other civil service as per our preferences indicated,” said a young officer.

Drafts of the unique petition are being finalised. This batch will formally be deployed in 2021. The batch senior to this one, which will be deployed in May 2020, is also following suit. “We want to exhaust all internal avenues of redressal so that the government or the courts cannot turn that against us when we approach them,” said an officer.

A pan-railway Civil Services Officers’ Association is being revived to represent all three services — Traffic, Accounts and Personnel. This association, which was attempted to be formed around four years ago, is aimed to get these services “a seat on the table” as a permanent negotiation mechanism with the Railways establishment, an officer said.

While Railways has said that the mechanism to merge services will be such that no existing officer loses out on either seniority or promotion prospects —Chairman Railway Board V K Yadav has called a meeting of all senior officers of the Railway Board on Friday to address their concerns on a variety of issues —the assurance has not cut much ice till now.

Meanwhile, a seemingly routine administrative decision to give the current Member Traction, an Electrical service officer, the charge to look after the post of Member Staff, which lies vacant following retirement, has caused a flutter. Viewed in the context of the impending merger, protesting officers are alleging departmentalism since the government encadred the Member Staff post for the Personnel service only recently. “They should have given the look-after charge to the seniormost in the Personnel service, which is logical,” said a protesting officer.

Information is being collected from across batches to make the point that a large number of civil servants left Railways Engineering services even after serving for a few years after they cracked the Civil Services Examination and joined back as civil servants either in Traffic, Accounts or Personnel. This is to underscore the argument that the status of a civil servant is coveted and well accepted even among engineers. “I lost three years of seniority as an engineer in another government organisation to join here as a civil servant,” said an officer. “No one took my consent before changing my service.”

Across 68 divisions, many civil servants boycotted the official New Year’s Eve celebrations as a mark of protest.