RailEnquiry

Chaos and confusion are plaguing the railway ministry as most of the crucial and senior most positions remain vacant including the post of Chairman of Railway Board.
After the recent Rs 10 crore bribery scandal which hit the railway ministry, involving transfer of senior officials to various plum posts in the ministry, the placement of senior officials in sensitive positions has been completely derailed. Former railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal was embroiled in this cash-for-post scam, after his nephew Vijay Singla, allegedly took bribe for getting posts fixed in the ministry.New railway minister M Mallikarjuna Kharge is yet to take any firm initiative to fill the nine empty posts. These vacancies have caused confusion in the ministry, affecting its functioning and virtually leaving it direction-less.The current nine positions which are lying vacant are Chairman, railway board, member (staff) and seven general manager level posts. According to ministry officials, there are officers who have been deputed additional charge to take care of these posts, which includes, the  responsibilities of member (staff) being looked after by member (electrical) Subodh Jain. The post of the chairman is being handled by member (mechanical) Arunendra Kumar. Even for the general managers’ jobs there have been respective allotment of additional charge to officials. West Central Railway manager of Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh) is also handling the charge of secretary South East Central Railway (SECR) in Bilaspur (Chhattisgarh). Incidentally, the railway ministry is one of significant ministries, as there are 2 crore and 30 lakh passengers who travel in various trains every day. 

The ministry runs nearly twenty thousand trains on a daily basis out of which 11,000 are passenger-carrying trains and 9,000 freight trains. The ministry currently has on board 13 lakh employees. During the Nitish Kumar tenure in the ministry, there were nine zones, which have been expanded to seventeen existing ones.

‘None of the posts actually lie vacant because we already have officers who have been given additional charge to handle these posts. ,’ a ministry official told Millennium Post.