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The Great IRMS Hoopla: From Backbones to Crabs

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Four years ago, the Indian Railways Management Service (IRMS) was launched with great fanfare, its mission as lofty as a mountain peak: to unite eight warring railway services into one harmonious entity and finally exorcise the ghost of departmentalism. Alas, the noble vision soon developed cracks so wide you could drive a Vande Bharat train through them. After a circus of flip-flops that would make acrobats weep with envy, the government hit the reset button and announced a return to the good old recruitment system through the Civil Services Examination (CSE) and Engineering Services Examination (ESE)—an old habit dressed up as a shiny new plan. To rub salt into the wound, the buzzword ‘IRMS’—already a term that managed to mean everything and nothing at once—was not discarded but cynically retained, as if to convince everyone that this was not a retreat, but rather a strategic tweak. Officers will now flaunt their departments, thinly disguised as sub-cadres, with labels like IRMS (Tra
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Diwali’s Got Entourage: 5-day greeting assault to drive you crazy!

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Ah, here I stand, the valiant recipient of the never-ending WhatsApp parade, bearing the  relentless onslaught of festive fervor. One would think that each digital greeting might warm the cockles of one's heart , but alas, it only heaps bricks upon an already inundated soul. In the words of Antony in the bard’s Julius Caesar, “...Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!...” —only here, the dogs are pixelated gods, goddesses, one holy figure after another, and of course, candles and lamps, storming forth in hundreds with gilded frames and music that reverberates from a realm Mozart himself dared not tread.   Must I truly prime you to sympathize with my hapless plight? Perhaps so. Recall, if you will, my earlier outpourings on this very theme—the chronicles of my bewilderment as I braved the relentless onslaught of well-meaning wishes, reproduced at the end for those interested to gauge my cup of woe. But lo, these humble laments seem as whispers to the wind, for they have yet
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IRMS: Mother of all Rollbacks Announce, Reverse Repeat!

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  “Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges… ' proclaims the Clown in the bard’s Twelfth Night , meaning what goes around comes around and so too has time spun back on the Indian Railways Management Service (IRMS). Conceived four years ago to merge eight railway services into a single entity and banish the ghost of departmentalism, the IRMS seemed the future of railway management. Yet, with the cracks in this vision too glaring to ignore, after many flip flops, the government recently seemed to have reversed the course again, opting once more for officer recruitment through the Civil Services Examination (CSE) and Engineering Services Examination (ESE)—a return to old habits under a new guise.   I recently wrote that IRMS, often humorously dubbed the Indian Railway Mismanagement Service , has a rather unique purpose—one might call it the ultimate Innovative Redundancy Management Scheme . It keeps the increasingly redundant railway executives in a state of confused bliss, h
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Rerouting Safety on Indian Railways! Time for more than more of the same

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Railway safety is making headlines for all the wrong reasons lately, with two dominant narratives emerging based on where you stand politically. On one side, critics claim that the instances of rail accidents have gone up massively in recent times and that Indian Railways (IR) has been focusing on flashy projects like the Vande Bharat trains and swanky stations for sheer optics, neglecting the more pressing issue of passenger safety. On the other side, some allege that cases of averted accidents, and even accidents, have gone up due to nefarious elements working to derail trains by placing obstructions on tracks and that a sinister plot by external enemies is at play, with sleeper cells and saboteurs actively working to cause accidents.   Frankly, both of these perspectives miss the mark by a wide margin.   The recent spate of railway accidents has naturally stirred up public, media, and political scrutiny. However, the conversation often revolves around raw statistics. While i
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Guard Your Legacy, ICF! Why Surrender Your Crown?

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I have long maintained that, in the absence of any significant technological advancement in the Vande Bharat train technology since the prototype in 2018—aside from some cosmetic enhancements here and there—it is high time for ICF to shift gears and focus on designing and developing an indigenous 240-250 kmph train for Standard Gauge. My blog connects: http://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2024/03/export-of-vande-bharat-trains-south.html This would not exactly send the Japanese scrambling to slash their reportedly sky-high prices they have offered for the High-Speed Railway (HSR) trains, given that the Mumbai-Ahmedabad HSR corridor is being built for speeds of 320 kmph. Nevertheless, it would channel India’s indigenous capabilities in the right direction, including a great opening in the field of exporting trains to   middle-income countries. So, the Railway Board’s decision asking ICF to take on this challenge was a breath of fresh air. With the right leadership and unwavering
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Oh serial greeters, no more!! Aur nahin bus aur nahin

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  Let me first prime you a bit from my blog archives:   http://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2022/06/oh-they-kill-with-kindness.html   http://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2020/12/hbd-forsooth.html   You now know what to expect. And I too know exactly what is coming when my phone starts pinging with a fury that rivals the roar of Armageddon. I was already between a rock and a hard place when the blitz of World Coconut Day greetings seamlessly transitioned to a deluge of Teachers’ Day wishes. Oh, that blessed Friday the 6th at precisely 3:01 PM when it all began, and the torment continued unabated past Saturday the 7th, 5:37 PM. My phone, laptop, and PC were now gloriously cluttered with no less than 467 digital Lord Ganeshas in various mudras —each one looking more bemused and anguished than beatific. A song with beats from the underworld accompanied these blessed visuals, making the torment complete. Then, as if the gods were testing my resolve, they slipped in greetings for some
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