After Fin Min objection, Railways stops officers' promotion

The Railway Ministry has stopped promotion of officers in two of its secretarial services after alleged irregularities were pointed out by the Finance Ministry.

A scam had come to light in two lesser-known services-- Railway Board Secretariat Service and Railway Board Secretariat Clerical Service -- where promotions were being made allegedly without following due procedures and bypassing Union Cabinet's jurisdiction.

Terming it as a 'serious lapse', the Finance Ministry had written to Railways to 'revoke' its decision for promoting these officials through cadre restructuring.

Following this, Railways decided to stop the whole exercise.

"It is noted that Department of Personnel and Training and Ministry of Finance have pointed out certain anomalies.

Corrective action should be taken at the earliest.

"Further promotion based on this cadre restructuring should be carried out after the issue is resolved with the DoPT and MoF," former Railway Minister Mallikarjun Kharge had said in a noting on the file.

In future, no cadre restructuring should be processed without following the due procedure as pointed out by MoF, he had said.

Officials were being promoted to Higher Administrative Grade and Senior Administrative Grade by bypassing Group 'A' Railway Services like Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineer (IRSME), Indian Railway Personnel Service and even the IAS without their having put a minimum of about 16

years of service, official sources said.

HAG and SAG are given to an Additional Secretary and Joint Secretary level officer respectively.

At present, an officer belonging to Central Secretariat Service is normally given SAG after completion of an average of 23 years of service, Group A railway service officer after 23 years and an IAS officer after putting in 20 years of service, the sources said.

A number of officials were being given SAG grade in RBSS, despite they being recruited in group 'B' service, without following necessary requirement, they said.

"This is a serious lapse on the part of officers responsible to place the factual position and rules and regulations before the decision-making authorities," the MoF had said in a strongly-worded official memorandum to the Railways.

According to rules, approval of the Finance Minister is required for creation of posts below SAG level and for creating Joint Secretary and other posts above the level, nod of the Union Cabinet is required.

It is pertinent to mention that these officers of RBSS and RBSCS are responsible for cadre management of Group 'A' officers in the Railways.

RBSS and RBSCS employees, about 500 in number, act as general administration staff in the Railways Ministry which has about 13 lakh (1.3 million) employees -- both gazetted and non-gazetted.