After the Union Government’s decision to rollback its 2019 decision to merge the railway’s eight services into a unified service on October 5, the railway board has now come out with a notification announcing that there will be eight streams under the Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS). The eight services have been notified as a “sub-cadre” under IRMS which includes traffic, accounts, personnel, civil, electrical, mechanical, signal & telecommunication and stores.
The government through its Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) had allowed the railway to recruit officers through two different
examinations. The recruitment for first four services will be done through Civil Services Exam (CSE) and remaining will be through Engineering
Services Exam (ESE). After the merger of services introduced in 2019, there was a provision of recruitment only through the Civil Services Examination (CSE). It created a lot of problems in finding suitable candidates for the technical posts leading the government to restore the earlier position.
As per notification, the entire IRMS cadre will have a total sanctioned strength of 8458 personnel.
This decision can be seen as an attempt to strike a fine balance between 2019 decision to have a unified service, and to ensure that railway gets sufficient manpower for both technical and non-technical posts.
Also Read: Centre rolls back 2019 merger policy for recruitment of railway officers
