Appointments Committee of Cabinet approves restructuring of Railway Board, current Chairman named CEO

The Cabinet Appointment Panel has approved the appointment of Railway Board Chairman, Vinod Kumar Yadav as the CEO of the board. This move has started the long-pending organizational restructuring of National transporter.

In December 2019, the Union Government had approved the restructuring of the Railway Board, which has now been downsized from 8 members to 5.

As per the plan formulated by the Railway Department, the Chairman and CEO will be the cadre controlling officer who will be responsible for the Human Resources (HR) with assistance from a DG (HR).

Why is this organizational restructuring is required?

The restructuring exercise of the organizational structure, beginning with the Rail Board, aims to ensure better efficiency while also avoiding cross-departmental frictions.

The restructuring exercise has been carried out broadly on the recommendations of the Bibek Debroy committee on the Indian Railways.

The report of the committee presented in 2015 mentioned that the centralized structure and departmentalization of the Indian Railways has been adversely affecting the work-culture of Railways and also narrowing its approach to department-specific goals.

Latest Appointments of Railway Board:

• Vinod Kumar Yadav has been appointed as the Chairman and CEO.

• Pradeep Kumar has been appointed Member, Infrastructure, and PC Sharma is appointed as Member, Traction and Rolling Stock.

• PS Mishra is named as the Member, Operations, and Business Development.

• Manjula Rangarajan has been appointed as the Member, Finance.

• Three-level posts of Member, Staff, member, Engineering, and Member, Materials Management in the Railway Board have been surrendered.

• As per the Cabinet’s decision, the Post of Member, Rolling Stock has been utilized for the creation of the post of Director General (DG) in the apex grade.

Other changes in the department:

• The Indian Railway Medical Service (IRMS) will be named the Indian Railway Health Service (IRHS).

• The procedure to merge the eight-railway related wings into the single centra service named the Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS) is also underway.

• As part of the Railway Ministry’s 100 Days Action Plan of FY 20, rightsizing of the Indian Railway was on the agenda in order to improve the efficiencies of the mammoth organization.