"This madness shines brightly": In a fiery letter, transferred engineer rails against Indian Railways

Transferred just three days before his retirement, a senior engineer took Indian Railways to task by way of a strongly-worded letter, ToI reported on November 28.

KP Arya, a senior engineer from Chhattisgarh's Bilaspur division of South East Central Railway (SECR), was left stunned after the Railway Board transferred him to the Northern Railway (NR) zone in Delhi just three days before his retirement.

Frustrated, he shot off a letter to the Railway Board Secretary, calling the order "sheer madness".


The order instructed the engineer to join the NR on a higher administrative grade (HAG) post by November 28. An annoyed Arya wrote, "This order seems well in order at the surface, but when seen in the complete perspective of my imminent superannuation within a week on November 30, the madness shines brightly."

"Because this is nothing but sheer madness only to transfer one employee, who has served the IR (Indian Railway) organisation his whole life, in the week of his superannuation so that his superannuation settlement gets disrupted and he gets harassed in the last days in the organisation," ToI reported quoting the letter.

There was a vacant HAG post in the SECR zone, Arya told news agency PTI. Despite that, he was transferred to a similar vacant post in the NR zone, he added.

The Railways will pay him about Rs 3 lakh just as transfer money, which is a "complete waste of public money", Arya's letter noted.

Although termed a promotional transfer, Arya said that it handed him no additional financial benefits. He added that his promotion, delayed by six months, had already entitled him to monetary benefits as per govt norms.

Arya said that the promotional transfer is nothing but a means of harassment being used by some officials of "dubious character".

"In the series of harassment being meted out to me, a professionally very very competent, honest and upright officer by a cabal of officials of dubious character … I found it my duty to expose the concerned Railway Board officials as I have always done.," the engineer wrote.

He added that he felt compelled to expose the misconduct of some officials.