The government of India has finally announced the rollback of its 2019 decision to merge eight railway services into one Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS). The announcement of demerger was made on October 5, thus ending almost five years of confusion and practical difficulties faced in the recruitment of the railway officers.
Now the recruitment of the railway officers will be done through two different examinations – the Civil Services Examination (CSE) for non-technical posts and Engineering Services Examination (ESE) for technical posts.
The Centre had introduced the merger policy in 2019 for recruitments of the railway officers by which eight services were merged into a single civil service, the Indian Railway Management Service and the recruitments of officers for both technical and non-technical posts were being made only through the Civil Services Examination (CSE). But soon it was realized that the merger decision was ill-advised that only created confusion and difficulties in finding suitable manpower for technical posts. It led the Union Government to announce the rollback and restore the old system of recruitments through two separate examinations conducted by the Union Public Service Commission.
Also Read: Railway Ministry notifies IRMS, bringing together eight existing services of the railways