Cabinet approves restructuring of Railway Board, merging cadres

The Union Cabinet approved an organisational restructuring of the Indian Railways, including the merger of eight Group A services, which is expected to end departmentalism, promote smooth working and expedite decision-making. The Railway Board will be revamped along functional lines and its strength pruned to make it a leaner organisation.

“Today’s historic decision to restructure the Railway Board has set the path for Indian Railways to move on a very high-growth trajectory as it would be a unified organisation that will work single-mindedly,” railway minister Piyush Goyal said on Tuesday.

According to Goyal, the modalities and unification of the services will be worked out in consultation with the Department of Personnel and Training. A mechanism will be put in place to implement this in order to ensure fairness.


The eight Group A services will be merged into a central service called the Indian Railway Management Service. Currently, the Indian Railways is organised into departments such as traffic, civil, mechanical, electrical, signal & telecom, stores, personnel, and accounts. These departments are vertically separated and are each headed by a secretary-level officer (member) in the Railway Board.

“Unification of services will end this departmentalism, promote smooth working of railways, expedite decision-making, create a coherent vision for organisation and promote rational decision-making,” Goyal explained.

“This is going to streamline operations and provide flexibility on how they deploy people. It is another step towards corporatisation,” said Jaijit Bhattacharya, president, Centre for Digital Economy Policy Research.