Indian Railway Personnel Service (IRPS) – Group ‘A’ Civil Service

Full form of IRPS is Indian Railway Personnel Service. IRPS comes under the group A gazette services. It is one of the central services under the ministry of railways, Government of India. As the name suggests, the IRPS officers are concerned with the management of human resources of the railway department. The cadre of IRPS came into being in late 1976. So the IRPS cadre is duly considered one of the latest entries into the list of civil services. The IRPS cadre is very small in itself, consisting of a small number of officers, around 400 in its official service group.

Aspiring candidates who want to become IRPS officers need to clear all three rounds of UPSC Civil Services Examination, i.e. Prelims, Mains and the Interview round. Based on the final order of merit and ranking, officers are inducted into the IRPS cadre. Below we have provided detail information about Indian Railway Personnel Service Exam, including eligibility criteria, qualification, exam pattern, syllabus, training offered to IRPS officers, their career progression, various postings they enjoy, and their respective salary.

Indian Railway Personnel Service – Roles and Responsibilities

The important responsibilities of IRPS officers are listed below:

• Recruitment, induction, and training personnel into the Railway departments.
• Identifying personnel vacancies in various departments.
• Handling promotions and allotting seniority to cadres based on performance appraisals and seniority factors.
• Conducting surveys on possible transfers and posting for the current financial year.
• Handling the payments section of personnel, sorting out, and assessing their wages and perks. Allocating grade pays according to respective grades.
• Encouraging employee interactions and communications with the railway board members.
•  Participation in industrial relations development and establishment of an efficient automated grievance redressal mechanism that is fully operative and well administered.
• Overseeing the correct implementation of labour laws and ensuring the welfare activities of workers and employees of Indian Railways.
• Legal regulations regarding work enforcement of railway employees.
• Handling and looking after pension regulations issue of pension disbursal to retired employees.
• Civil welfare activities of employees such as establishment and governing infrastructure and essentials of residential colonies and quarters. Ensuring facilities to them, such as canteen stores, societies, recreation centers, access to education, hospitals, and cultural/ religious institutions.
• Upholding the cultural ethos of people and engaging them in various socio-cultural events as part of the department functionary. To engage personnel in sports and health welfare schemes and activities.

Training of Probationary IRPS Officers

Probationary officers selected after successful completion of the CSE process are inducted directly into the training curriculum of the IRPS cadre. The comprehensive training concludes after intensive 93-week training. The fifteen-week training at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy for administration ends at 15 weeks at Mussoorie. The details of the specialised training are explained here under:

• High level training for officers is carried over a series of back to back sessions at various places beginning with the National Academy of Indian Railways (NAIR) located at Vadodara. This is then followed up again with a specialised training curriculum back at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy for Administration (LBSNAA) in Mussoorie. This is then carried over to National Academy for Direct Taxes (NADT) at Nagpur. This session of combined training gives way to a new set of training curriculum.
• Inducts are taken on fieldwork to premier management institutions and establishments. Here they are provided in-house officer training on managing human resources and personnel through live sessions and interactive engagements.
• Applying this knowledge with respect to the HR coordination of Indian railways is the next step of the training process. Inducts are assigned to significant and performing divisions of the Indian railways for field training and on-job specific training.

Indian Railway Personnel Service (IRPS) – Grade & Salary

According to the grades and ranks of IRPS officers, they serve in different positions at various points in their careers. Below we have provided an IRPS officer salary structure in detail.

Indian Railway Personnel Service (IRPS) – Career Prospects

The career progression of an IRPS officer travels through various designations over a career journey spanning many miles and years. Some significant designations are listed here under:

• When posted in railway divisions, they serve in various roles such as assistant personnel officer, divisional personnel officer, senior division personnel officer, etc.
• When posted in zonal wings of railway departments, they serve in the roles of assistant personnel officer, senior personnel officer, and deputy chief personnel officer.
• The chief personnel officer is officially the in-charge or head of the zonal headquarters he is assigned to.
• A principal HOD officially heads a zonal railway unit.
• They can also be transferred and posted to general roles such as additional divisional railway manager, divisional railway manager, chairman of the railway board, and general manager in higher administrative roles.