Examine the reasons of recent Cabinet approval on organisational restructuring of Indian Railways.
Currently, Railway Board consists of a Chairman and 8 members along the departmental lines. This promotes departmentalism in the railways which is a barrier to its growth.
As per the decision, there would be reorganisation of Railway Board: The Railway Board will be reorganised on the basis of functional lines of Railways.
Various Group A services of Indian Railways to be unified: The eight group A services of Indian Railways, such as Indian Railways Traffic Service and Indian Railways Accounts Service, will be merged into a single service called Indian Railways Management Service.
It will have a Chairman, who will act as the Chief Executive Officer. It will have four members responsible for (i) infrastructure, (ii) operations & business development, (iii) rolling stock, and (iv) finance, respectively.
Some independent members in advisory role will also be appointed to the board.
This is in accordance with the recommendations of certain Committees constituted on railways reforms such as the Prakash Tandon Committee (1994) and the Bibek Debroy Committee (2015).
