THE RESTRUCTURING OF RAILWAY BOARD

Suresh Prabhu is trying to streamline the operations of the Railway Board. The responsibilities of some key personnel have been tweaked to break the existing silos hampering the Railways. For instance, on March 21, a few days before the superannuation of Navin Tandon, Member (Electrical), Prabhu asked officers of Signals and Telecommunications wing to start reporting to V.K. Gupta, Member (Engineering). Prabhu has now ensured that Ashwani Kapoor — who took over from Tandon in March — will also be responsible for all locomotives (electrical and diesel) as Member (Traction). And in a recent August 3 order, Hemant Kumar, Member (Mechanical), has been asked to take care of all the rolling stocks as well.

This is the first reform in the Railway Board — the highest decision making body of the Railways — since it was constituted in 1951. In his budget speech, Prabhu resolved to revamp the Board, along with a promise to make its chairman more powerful and run the board like a CEO. But since these changes directly impact the seniority and promotions of the officers, reforming the board would be a tough task.

The task at hand before the Railway Board is to merge the eight services cadres into two unified cadres — technical and non-technical — as suggested by the Debroy Committee. To begin with, Prabhu has formulated three cross-functional directorates to oversee mobility, non-fare business and environment & cleanliness, instead of clubbing the cadres of existing staff. Prabhu has set objective KRAs for all general managers and also given them more powers to decide on project finances.