Incentives to High Performing Railways Employees: Lok Sabha Q&A

Incentives to High Performing Railways Employees: Lok Sabha Q&A

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS
LOK SABHA

UNSTARRED QUESTION NO: 174
ANSWERED ON: 16.11.2016

Incentives to High Performing Employees

T. RADHAKRISHNAN
Will the Minister of RAILWAYS be pleased to state:-

(a) whether the Indian Railways proposes to offer incentives to high performing employees;
(b) if so, the aims and objectives of the said proposal along with the criteria/ modalities fixed by the Government in this regard;
(c) the measures taken by the Government to avoid discrimination while incentives are given to the best eligible employees;
(d) the time by which the decision is likely to be taken in this regard; and
(e) the other steps taken to improve efficiency and motivation level of the Railway employees?

ANSWER

MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS
(SHRI RAJEN GOHAIN)

(a) There is no such proposal at present.
(b) to (d): Do not arise.
(e)  There is a system to prepare Annual Performance Appraisal Report (APAR), wherein the employees are evaluated and such evaluation is used while deciding promotions etc. Further, to improve efficiency and motivation levels, Productivity Linked Bonus is also given to non-gazetted Railway Employees excluding RPF/RPSF personnel who instead are given ad-hoc bonus.

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Admissibility of House Rent Allowance in the event of non-acceptance or surrender of railway residential accommodation

Admissibility of House Rent Allowance in the event of non-acceptance or surrender of railway residential accommodation - reg.

NFIR
National Federation of Indian Railwaymen

No.I/5(C)/Pt.I

Dated: 04/11/2016

The Secretary (E),
Railway Board,
New Delhi

Dear Sir,

Sub : Admissibility of House Rent Allowance in the event of non-acceptance or surrender of railway residential accommodation - reg.

Ref.: (i) NFIR's PNM item No.40/2012
(ii) NFIR's letter No. 1/5(c )/Part I dated 22/02/2016, 25/04/2016 & 01/08/2016
(iii) Railway Board’s Letter No.E(P&A)-II/2012/FE2/4 dated 31/10/2016.

With reference to reply received vide Board's letter dated 31/10/2016, the Federation desires to convey as follows :

(a) NFIR vide agenda item No.40/2012- last para, had demanded that condition mentioned in para 3 in Railway Board’s letter No.E(P&A)II-99/HRA-2 dated 16.03/2000 should be waived off or withdrawn.

(b) Federation also demanded that provision as mentioned in para 2 of the agenda item be made applicable to all categories of railway employees whether they belong to "Essential" or "other than Essential" categories.

It seems, the Railway Board have not examined the above issues with positive mind, taking ground reality into account with regard to availability of railway residential quarters, their condition for human occupation or otherwise. Due to total failure in maintenance of existing railway quarters on Zonal Railways, many quarters became totally outdated, unfit for occupation and overdue for demolition.

The main problem is that when the employee has vacated the quarters, he is denied HRA till the said quarter is physically occupied by another employee. This needs to be addressed.

Yours faithfully,
sd/-
(Dr. M.Raghavaiah)
General Secretary

Source: NFIR

Railways to rationalise staff strength

Railways to rationalise staff strength

New Delhi: Railways has undertaken an exercise to rationalize the number of employees working in the state transporter and shortlisted four human resource audit companies for the task.

An HR audit company would be identified and entrusted with the task of studying the entire gazetted staff strength, said Railway Board Member (Staff) Pradeep Kumar here today.

Four companies shortlisted for this purpose are Earnst and Young, Deloitte, Price cooper waterhouse and KPMG.

The HR company will examine the Railways’ manpower given the technological development/changes in operational and maintenance practices and determine the optimal level of the staff strength in the coming years, Kumar said.

Currently railways employees 13.36 lakh gazetted and non-gazetted workers.
“We will also hire a reputed consultant to examine the strength in non-gazetted section to study the system and requirement and see if there is any extra flab,” he said.

The Railways will also take into account the international benchmarks before deciding on the issue, the Member (Staff) said.

On the Debroy Committee’s recommendation that railways should not involve in other activities such as running schools, hospitals and RPF, Kumar said “The committee has just given its report and we have to examine it.”

However, he added “there has to be a system to keep railways and its employees in good health. Eventually, to run the Railway system there has to be some agencies to do the job.”
Railways has also taken steps to conduct all examinations online as a fool-proof measures against malpractices.

He said as a major IT initiative, online applications were introduced in two recent exams for the posts of Senior Section Engineers and Junior Engineers (SSEs/JEs) and Para-Medical categories respectively to bring transparency and certainty into recruitment process.

As per the new system, the Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) candidates can keep the question booklets. A pilot project of uploading of answer keys and cut-off marks was initiated in 2014-15, he said.
In the railway recruitment drive during 2014-15, examinations were conducted for 48,822 vacancies in 284 categories.

PTI