Talent is best recruited young

For 80 years, the Institute of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering (IRIMEE) of Indian Railways has been producing some of the finest railway engineers in the world. But the Special Class Railway Apprentice (SCRA) programme at Jamalpur will soon be history, as the railway ministry has asked the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to stop recruitment of SCRAs.

It is indeed sad news for IR which, long before this became a management buzzword, had been recruiting the best talent of the country by ‘catching them young’.

The SCRA scheme was conceived in 1927 by well-known nationalists such as Lala Lajpat Rai. This mode of recruitment has not only been catching talent, it has also been quite popular going by the number of applicants.

Between 2007 and 2014, a total of 8,02,137 candidates had appeared in the competitive examination conducted by the UPSC for filling 318 SCRA vacancies. In fact, there are only three career-linked opprtunities at the plus2 level, namely the SCRA for railway mechanical engineers, the NDA (National Defence Academy) for officers in the armed forces, and AFMC (Armed Forces Medical College) for doctors in the armed forces. Of these, the largest numbers apply for SCRA. This ensures that the UPSC selection for SCRA gets the best.

Jamalpur-trained engineers have, over the years, not only excelled in Indian Railways, but  also in public sector organisations such as ONGC, BHEL, HEC, MAMC, CMERI, DVC and others.  At least six SCRA recruits have been recipients of Padma awards besides numerous other national and international honours. Incidently, perhaps as last ditch effort to turn around the national carrier Air India, the government has posted a railway officer to head it, an SCRA.

Far from getting rid of the SCRA system, various experts and committees, including the latest one headed by Bibek Debroy, have proposed this ‘catch them young’ method of recruitment for all disciplines in the Railways.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a speech on November 23, 2014, said: “We have decided to open one Railway University each in the country’s eastern, western, southern and northern regions. Graduates from these special universities will contribute in faster development of the railway network across the country. They will be special railway graduates.”

Even Indira Gandhi had, in 1984, written to a member of Parliament that the government was “examining the extension of this scheme to cover recruitment and training of electrical engineers as recommended by Railway Accident Enquiry Committee 1978”. Clearly, the railway ministry appears to disagree with all of them.

The armed forces in India continue to adopt the ‘catch them young’ policy for recruitment through the NDA. Ironically the Railways, which today needs the best talent more than ever and improvement in services, feel otherwise. The railway ministry would be well advised to withdraw the recent letter to the UPSC asking for closure, and continue with the recruitment, as in the past, and take steps to extend this method of recruitment to other disciplines in the organisation. This will  also strengthen the ‘Make in India’ and ‘human skills development’ programme, as the SCRA scheme turns out engineer-administrators equally proficient in theory and practice.

This writer hasbeen responsible for training and manpower planning for over five years at the ministry level, and specifically with the training of newly recruited officers of all disciplines for over two years during an assignment with the government. As one who has closely watched the changes that have taken place over the years in the quality of manpower that is attracted by the Railways at senior levels, it is difficult to comprehend how the railway ministry can take such a step and give up the very mode of recruitment that yields the best.

But decisions in government are not always based on logic.

The writer was formerly director-general of the National Academy of Indian Railways

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