News:Union Cabinet has approved the restructuring of the Railway Board.
Facts:
About Railway Board:
- The Railway Board is the apex body of the Indian Railways which reports to the Parliament via the ministry of railways.At present,the railway board includes eight members.
- The Cabinet has now restructured the board.It will now consist of four members and chairperson.
- The chairperson will act as Chief Executive Officer(CEO) along with four members responsible for Infrastructure, Operations & Business Development, Rolling Stock and Finance respectively.
Merger of Services:
- The Union Cabinet has also approved the merger of the different cadres into a central service called the Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS).
- The modalities and unification of the services will be worked out by the Ministry of Railways in consultation with the Department of Personnel and Training.
Significance of this move:
- These reforms are aimed at ending departmentalisation of the mammoth organization that employees nearly 1.3 million people, second only to the strength of the Armed Forces.
- The Unification of services is aimed at ending departmentalism, promote smooth working of Railways, expedite decision making, create a coherent vision for organisation and promote rational decision making.
- Further,the unification of services had earlier been mooted by various committees for reforming Railways including – the Prakash Tandon Committee (1994), Rakesh Mohan Committee (2001), Sam Pitroda Committee (2012) and Bibek Debroy Committee (2015).
