Four years ago, a decision was taken to merge eight railway services into one civil service, that is, the Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS) so that departmentalism could be eliminated and bureaucracy reduced in the Indian Railways. As a result of that merger, the officers to the IRMS were being recruited via the Civil Service Examination since 2022. This, however, led to hiring of generalists who were not competent enough to handle technical or engineering operations.
That is why the Ministry of Railways has decided to revert to the old system of recruiting officers through the Civil Services Examination (CSE) and the Engineering Services Examination (ESE) conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).
The restoration of the old system will make it easier to recruit more suitable and technically-sound officers for the Railways. While officers in technical roles will be recruited via the ESE, the non-technical roles will be filled via the CSE.
An official letter has been sent by the Railway Ministry in this regard, for which an approval by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has been received, as reported by The Print. Taking into account the unique human resource requirements of the Railways, in terms of technical and non-technical expertise, it was felt that the old system of recruitment probably worked better.
It is also reported that a demerger of the IRMS is being mulled, considering the major dearth of suitable officers (in technical services) post the merger of the eight services into one. There is no official confirmation, however, of a demerger being on the cards to separate the engineering and civil services.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Telecommunications has been requested to include the recruitment of technical officers in the 2025 ESE so that its requirement for 225 engineers to fill technical officer roles can be met.
