'Promotion scam' in railways

NEW DELHI: A major irregularity in promotions in two secretarial services in the Railway Board has come to light.

Some railway ministry officials have been found promoting officials in the two lesser-known services of the railways -- Railway Board Secretariat Service (RBSS) and Railway Board Secretariat Clerical Service (RBSCS) -- without following due procedures and bypassing Union Cabinet's jurisdiction, official sources said.

Officials were being promoted to Higher Administrative Grade (HAG) and Senior Administrative Grade (SAG) by bypassing Group 'A' Railway Services like Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineer (IRSME), Indian Railway Personnel Service (IRPS) and even the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) without their having put a minimum of about 16 years of service, they said.

HAG and SAG is given to an Additional Secretary and Joint Secretary level officer, respectively.

At present, an officer belonging to Central Secretariat Service (CSS) is being normally given SAG after completion of an average of 23 years of service, Group A railway service officer after 23 years and an IAS officer after putting in 20 years of service, the sources said.

A number of officials were being given SAG grade in RBSS, despite they being recruited in group 'B' service, without following necessary requirement, they said.

Terming it as a "serious lapse", the Finance Ministry has recently written to railways to "revoke" its decision for promoting these officials, orders for which were issued almost a year ago.

In a missive, the Department of Expenditure under the Finance Ministry noted that "while conducting the cadre restructuring of RBSS and RBSCS, the Ministry of Railways did not refer the matter to this department for approval and rather created five additional SAG level posts without the approval of the Cabinet".