Dear Seniors, Friends and Railwaymen,
I want to raise an issue which in my view is quite important today to think over and discuss.
Departmentalisation is the bane of railway. We know it. But last 3 months I have seen it, gone through it and suffered because of it. Not just me, the work has suffered and is still suffering. I have written about it in my PRIME& AFRES SUBJECT. Shortly, after implementation of PRIME & AFRES time requirement in all facets of our work have visibly reduced while time being taken by Personnel branch to generate bills in PRIME has increased !!!!!!!!! The simple reason to my mind is Personnel Deptt. thinks PRIME is Accounts baby and since Accounts want the bill through PRIME, they are not obliged to submit the bill on time. It has been a fight of nerves so far. We are patiently awaiting their acceptance of the package slowly. But what is beyond comprehension is while the Enggr. time keeper and S7T time keepers and RPF bill clerks are happily doing their pay bills in PRIME and are able to submit it before time, why should the Personnel Deptt. work to the contrary. If there is any problem the officers are saying ask Sr.DAO or DRM who forced the implementation !!!!!!!! What a sorry state of affairs.
After lot of thought, it came to my mind why shouldn't the Personnel & Accounts Deptts. be run by one cadre- the IRAS.
The example of IRTS cadre comes to mind. The officers of IRTS run two very big departments viz. COMMERCIAL and TRAFFIC. The two departments are not necessarily connected, at least no more than PERSONNEL and ACCOUNTS are connected. 100% Personnel Deptt. staff are engaged in staff payment while 97% of Accounts Staff are engaged in staff payment release. Only a minuscule of our staff are for contractual, store and other misc. payment. All other section from Estt. to PF to Pension, Inspection- all are primarily engaged in staff-related expenditure.
Therefore, IRAS officers are rightly placed to run the two departments. With PRIME & AFRES it has become all the more clear that payroll and all staff related payments are single composite process which should be run by a homogenous set of systems. The best way to achieve this is not just by having a common software but to have a common administrative architecture. The best way to achieve it to run it by one cadre - the IRAS just as IRTS does for Commercial and Traffic.
I know it may sound sacrilegeous to some as it sounds the deathknell of IRPS. Of course yes. The evolution of Railway system does not need another cadre....so it should go. But it need not sadden anyone's heart. IRAS intake can double and all those in IRPS would still continue in that cadre as long as they are only in future IRAS officers can and would also become APO, DPO or Sr.DPO.
Till the other day, Personnel Deptt. was responsible to generate its bills and we used to check it. We were not interfering how they generate it as long as the information was getting checked by us. Today technology has made such double exercise irrelevant and staff reduction scheme makes it totally unnecessary. A single process would do it all. Internal check of staff payment would be unnecessary. Slowly PRIME's reach would go beyond just pay roll. Cadre, Quarters, Leave, Seniority all would merge into it along with promotions etc. as nothing can remain apart from financial payments. Therefore, it would serve better to have the same cadre implementing or running the show. Today the one upmanship between the two departments even when they are basically doing the same thing- all staff related activities- is for no one's good. This problem does not exist in Commercial and Traffic, at least in not such widespread manner as the officers are from same cadre and there is always movement of officers from one department to the other ensuring a certain level of synergy.
One may raise a question - why IRAS and not IRPS. The answer is obvious. IRAS is the older cadre and much more established and bigger one than the other. Otherwise there is no particular distinction. The objective is one cadre running two departments. OR may be create one new cadre IRAPS (Indian Railway Accounts & Personnel Service).
Comments please
H.K.Sahu,
Sr.DFM
Kharagpur
I want to raise an issue which in my view is quite important today to think over and discuss.
Departmentalisation is the bane of railway. We know it. But last 3 months I have seen it, gone through it and suffered because of it. Not just me, the work has suffered and is still suffering. I have written about it in my PRIME& AFRES SUBJECT. Shortly, after implementation of PRIME & AFRES time requirement in all facets of our work have visibly reduced while time being taken by Personnel branch to generate bills in PRIME has increased !!!!!!!!! The simple reason to my mind is Personnel Deptt. thinks PRIME is Accounts baby and since Accounts want the bill through PRIME, they are not obliged to submit the bill on time. It has been a fight of nerves so far. We are patiently awaiting their acceptance of the package slowly. But what is beyond comprehension is while the Enggr. time keeper and S7T time keepers and RPF bill clerks are happily doing their pay bills in PRIME and are able to submit it before time, why should the Personnel Deptt. work to the contrary. If there is any problem the officers are saying ask Sr.DAO or DRM who forced the implementation !!!!!!!! What a sorry state of affairs.
After lot of thought, it came to my mind why shouldn't the Personnel & Accounts Deptts. be run by one cadre- the IRAS.
The example of IRTS cadre comes to mind. The officers of IRTS run two very big departments viz. COMMERCIAL and TRAFFIC. The two departments are not necessarily connected, at least no more than PERSONNEL and ACCOUNTS are connected. 100% Personnel Deptt. staff are engaged in staff payment while 97% of Accounts Staff are engaged in staff payment release. Only a minuscule of our staff are for contractual, store and other misc. payment. All other section from Estt. to PF to Pension, Inspection- all are primarily engaged in staff-related expenditure.
Therefore, IRAS officers are rightly placed to run the two departments. With PRIME & AFRES it has become all the more clear that payroll and all staff related payments are single composite process which should be run by a homogenous set of systems. The best way to achieve this is not just by having a common software but to have a common administrative architecture. The best way to achieve it to run it by one cadre - the IRAS just as IRTS does for Commercial and Traffic.
I know it may sound sacrilegeous to some as it sounds the deathknell of IRPS. Of course yes. The evolution of Railway system does not need another cadre....so it should go. But it need not sadden anyone's heart. IRAS intake can double and all those in IRPS would still continue in that cadre as long as they are only in future IRAS officers can and would also become APO, DPO or Sr.DPO.
Till the other day, Personnel Deptt. was responsible to generate its bills and we used to check it. We were not interfering how they generate it as long as the information was getting checked by us. Today technology has made such double exercise irrelevant and staff reduction scheme makes it totally unnecessary. A single process would do it all. Internal check of staff payment would be unnecessary. Slowly PRIME's reach would go beyond just pay roll. Cadre, Quarters, Leave, Seniority all would merge into it along with promotions etc. as nothing can remain apart from financial payments. Therefore, it would serve better to have the same cadre implementing or running the show. Today the one upmanship between the two departments even when they are basically doing the same thing- all staff related activities- is for no one's good. This problem does not exist in Commercial and Traffic, at least in not such widespread manner as the officers are from same cadre and there is always movement of officers from one department to the other ensuring a certain level of synergy.
One may raise a question - why IRAS and not IRPS. The answer is obvious. IRAS is the older cadre and much more established and bigger one than the other. Otherwise there is no particular distinction. The objective is one cadre running two departments. OR may be create one new cadre IRAPS (Indian Railway Accounts & Personnel Service).
Comments please
H.K.Sahu,
Sr.DFM
Kharagpur
