Pay panel award may keep Railway cost optimisation under stress
Cost optimisation efforts of the Indian Railways will be under pressure this financial year due to implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations, a top official has said.
"This fiscal, the cost optimisation move of the Railways will be under pressure owing to implementation of the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission," Sanjay Mookherjee, Financial Commissioner, Railway Board, told agency.
During 2015-16, he said, the Railways saved around Rs 12,000 crore, of which Rs 4,000 crore came from fuel.
The balance Rs 8,000 crore was from various austerity measures and also by way of increasing efficiency.
According to Mookherjee, the additional burden due to the Pay panel recommendations would be around Rs 30,000 crore per annum.
To meet this additional liability, the Indian Railways had built a corpus for the last three years through developing certain funds. "Part of the liability will be met from these funds and the balance through internal resource generation," he let out.
However, he made it clear that development and expansion of the Railways would not be hit as the resources were provided by the government while LIC had offered Rs 1.5 lakh crore.
The LIC funds will be used to develop infrastructure and the Railways and has a servicing period of 30 years.
Through additional resource generation, the target for finances this year was to increase 10.1 per cent to Rs 1.85 lakh crore from the earlier Rs 1.67 lakh crore.
Besides, IRFC will raise Rs 20,000 crore from the market during 2016-17, the Commissioner said. During the year, the Railways is expected to mobilise a substantial chunk of funds through dynamic pricing, realisation from freight by widening the basket of commodities and higher containerisation.
The Railways would also operate a cold chain infrastructure through a separate subsidiary called Translog, he added.
Discontinuation of Interview at Lower Level Post : DOPT Released a Note
The Prime Minister in his address to the nation on the Independence Day has stressed the
need to discontinue holding interviews for recruitment for such junior level posts where
personality assessment is not an absolutely necessary requirement.
He has called upon the Government Organizations' to end this practice at the earliest as it will
help in curbing corruption, more objective selection in transparent manner substantially easing
the problems of poor people.
He has emphasized that the recruitment should be made on merit basis through transparent,
online processes leading to less Government and more Governance.
The Department of Personnel and Training on the basis of recommendations made by the
Committee of Secretaries has already taken a decision to discontinue interviews at the junior
level posts at Group 'B' (Non-Gazetted), Group 'C' ,Group 'D' (which are now reclassified as
Group 'C') and all equivalent posts.
All the advertisement for future vacancies will be without the Interview as part of the
recruitment process. From 1 st January 2016 there will be no recruitment with interview at the
junior level posts, in Government of India Ministries/ Departments/attached Office/Subordinate
Office/Autonomous Bodies/Public Sector Undertakings.
The interviews will be done away even in cases where the selections were made purely on
basis of performance in the interview. The Ministries/Departments/Organizations' will consider
revising the scheme for selection or such cases.
As the Skill Test or Physical Test is different from Interview they may continue. However these
tests will only be of qualifying nature. Assessment will not be done on the basis of marks for
such tests.
The decision to discontinue interview for the junior level posts across the country will be major
step towards achieving the objectives of citizen centric transparent governance.
The matter has also been taken up with the State Governments/UTs to undertake similar
exercise, from time to time. In this regard letters from Secretary (Personnel) to the State Chief
Secretaries have been issued on 4th September 2015 and letters from MoS (PP) to the State
Chief Ministers have been issued on 29 th September 2015 and 1 st January, 2016.
To facilitate the implementation of the directions of the Hon'ble Prime Minister further by the
various Organizations/Ministries/Departments/Governments a one day workshop was also
organized by the DOPT on 16th November 2015.
Some of the State Government have shared the status in this regard with the DOPT.
The Summary of the State Responses on the Discontinuation of Interview is as
follows:
