D.O. No. A/EC/B/DO to FC                                                                                                Dated  18.05.2002

 

 

Dear Sir,

 

           I acknowledge the receipt of your letter No. 2002/E&R/50/CRB/5  dated 03.05.2002, expressing my gratitude for the confidence reposed in the role and performance of the associated Finance and Finance - Officers on Indian Railways.

 

           Following suggestions are made to improve overall efficiency of Railways, to improve quality of service to passengers / Rail users :-

 

1.        Improving efficiency of managers with the use of technology :

 

1.1            Officers    may   be   deputed   for   training   on the relevant training programmes,

workshops and seminars, including machine-training to tone-up and enhance their professional and technical skills at Rly's institutions and outside, in a regular way. Attending such courses may be mandatory. For such courses, a stand-by officer may also be retained in the event of the original officer not being sent due to some extreme reason.

 

1.2      Officers may be allowed Lap-top computers and mobile-phones in more liberal way. Availability of such inputs is additional expenditure, no doubt, but also devolves higher responsibility on him.

 

1.3            Quite some of the present day information is built up through use of computers by capturing the transaction and is commonly used by several departments. Such data-bases may be accepted without further vetting and verification.

 

2.                Delegation of Powers :

 

2.1            Work relating to traffic-claims is at present centralised at HQs office. Similarly traffic-accounting and commercial finance work is also centralised at HQs. level. This area specially concerns the passenger or rail user. This needs to be made division-based. Even the large stations where the cause of the event relates may be delegated powers.

 

2.2            Powers need to be delegated to the divisional authorities to create posts/deploy posts in the areas concerning passenger-care. Retiring rooms, platform and waiting-room areas and on-board railway worker can be expected to contribute substantially more if he has passenger-interface orientation to be manifest through his presence on duty in the prescribed uniform code and with label-card and identity card. Passenger-complaint needs to be taken at face-value and dealt with immediacy. Ideal situation will be when each public dealing railway servant is self-supervisor. Till that happens, supervisory power should stand automatically delegated to the senior most supervisor/officer available at site of customer grievance/inconvenience.

 

2.3            Officer travelling on duty should be expected to devote time for ticket-checking and generally seeing passenger - conveniences and taking corrective action whenever needed.

 

2.4            Tender-acceptance powers of General Managers have been enhanced recently. On the same lines, further delegation needs to be decided down the line so that real benefit of this enhancement is realised. This will result into quicker finalisation of cases and faster availability of stores and materials. Impact would surely be felt in the passenger-care areas.

 

2.5            In   certain    places,   some   staff are working on supernumerary posts despite the

efforts to shift them to the requisite field of work. The entire expenditure on them is irregular (not in the codal sense). Even if their output is half in departmentally allotted requisite area, half the losses are avoided. Such people should be motivated to work on short-time projects/work-charged establishments, avoiding the creation of temporary posts. Such powers may be delegated to the controlling officer, without involvement of many establishment rules.

 

2.6            More   general    and    broad-based   designations   may be prescribed like Office-

Assistant, Commercial Assistant, Group D Worker, Caretaker, Personnel Inspector, Commercial Inspector, Accounts Inspector, etc., so that compartmentalisation within the department is minimised. The manager would be in a position to ensure better utilisation.

 

2.7       Financial values and limits in the delegation of powers be got updated/confirmed every three years, as a part of procedure - At present, time-lag is long.

 

2.8      Many a delegation of powers as at present has come after deviation and over-stepping had taken place as post facto regularisation. Those who use powers should be continuously consulted for their work-requirement.

 

3.0      Simplification of rules & procedures :

 

3.1      Revision of pension cases is too much of a complicated & time-consuming area, leading to inefficiency and complaints. Each Pay Commission should give a specific factor to be used to update the pension rate from P.P.O. it must not entail notional fixations of pay scales for which lots of records are needed. The old office records are difficult to locate when required and the pensioner cannot be expected to produce evidence except P.P.O. No fresh application from the pensioner need be taken.

 

Similarly fixation of pay may also be to rounded rupees like Rs. 2600, 2610, 3050, 3070 etc. Rents, recoveries and allowances be in simple rounded rupees/slabs.

 

3.2       Allotment of funds is an exercise which has created enormous amount of work in the offices. Once expenditure limits are communicated, the next stage should be only the

 

Appropriation Accounts. In case, there is any situation of surrender/enhanced requirement, the same is to be treated as an exception. Regularisation of all expenditures

 

at the end of the year sends wrong message, apart from the avoidable work. Delayed allotments can not be judiciously used.

 

3.3      Frequent changes in the production-targets & product-mix on P.Us create avoidable paper-work, escalate the manufacturing-cost and generate inventories and redundancies. This also has budgetary-relationship. One year is a short period and changes may wait for the next year.

 

4.0      Building system on faith.

 

4.1      Pre-check on vouchers costing upto a certain financial limit need not be mandatory. Only test check can do.

 

4.2      More certificates - Certification on the lines of P.A.C. (Proprietary Article Certificate) can be examined/considered in the areas of market-survey and availability of sources (like limited-tender scenario), reasonableness of rates and urgency etc. to be signed by the empowered authority which is expected to result into faster disposal of further paper-work.

 

4.3      Vetting of stock items when related to computerised Bill of Materials as per the sanctioned production programme/sanctioned funds may be dispensed with.

 

4.4      More and more areas are being covered under innovative schemes like un-bundling, alternative-marketing, exploitation/exploration of new resources and marketing of workshop out-turn. Rly's manager is not fully conversant with the complete realities of new environs. He is likely to make bonafide errors. We must make allowance for that so that caution does not overwhelm the initiative.

 

With regards,

 

   

Yours Sincerely,

 

(Manjit Singh Bhatia)

 

Shri I.I.M.S. Rana,

Chairman,

Railway Board &

Ex-Officio Principal secretary,

Government of India,

Ministry of Railway,

New Delhi - 110 001.

 

D.O. No. 2002/E&R/50/CRB/5                                                                                   May  3,2002

 

 

My dear Bhatia,

 

                        I have a dream, vision and conviction that one day Indian Railways should be and would be headed by a Finance Officer.

 

                        You are doing an excellent job as far as control of expenditure, financial advice and in many other fields. I would like you to enlarge scope of your functioning by making suggestions, to improve overall efficiency of Railways, to improve quality of service to passengers, especially in the following areas :

 

                      Improving efficiency of managers with the use of technology, delegation of powers, simplification of rules and procedures to avoid delays, building system on faith etc.

 

                        Cost of time lags including cost of reduction in life of assets due to lack of proper maintenance as a result of delays due to lengthy procedures (Whether assets may be rails, rolling stock, fixed structures like signalling gear, building, electrical installations etc.).

 

                        Time lags, of course, are not exclusive domain of any one department. All departments contribute to time lag. However I am writing to FA&CAOs as I have lots of hope for ideas and suggestions from FA&CAOs.

 

                        Please let me have your suggestions through your General Managers with advance copy of suggestions to FC and me.

 

                        With best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

 

 

 

(I.I.M.S. Rana)

 

 

 

 

Shri M.S. Bhatia,

FA&CAO,

DLW,

Varanasi.