ACC approves appointment of VK Yadav as Railway Board’s first-ever CEO

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of the current chairman of the Railway Board VK Yadav as the CEO, making him the first to hold such a post in the railway's history.

The Cabinet had earlier approved the restructuring of the Railway Board, whose strength has been cut from eight to five, as part of large scale reforms initiated by the national transporter.

While Yadav has been appointed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Pradeep Kumar has been appointed Member, Infrastructure, PC Sharma has been appointed Member, Traction and Rolling Stock, PS Mishara has been made Member, Operations and Business Development, Manjula Rangarajan has been appointed Member, Finance.

With this rearrangement, three apex level posts -- Member (Staff), Member (Engineering) and Member (Materials Management) in the Railway Board have been surrendered and the post of Member (Rolling Stock) has been utilised for creation of the post of Director General (HR) in apex grade as per the Cabinet's Decision, the ACC said.

According to the plan chalked out by the Railways, the chairman and CEO will be the cadre controlling officer responsible for human resources (HR) with assistance from a DG (HR). The Indian Railway Medical Service (IRMS) will be renamed the Indian Railway Health Service (IRHS). The process to merge eight railway-related wings into a single central service called the Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS) is underway.

These reforms, the Railways has said, will end “departmentalism", promote smooth working of railways, expedite decision making, create a coherent vision for organisation and promote rational decision making.