The government was supposed to hold a separate exam for recruiting officers into the Indian Railways. But for now, the plan has been put on hold. A statement from the Ministry of Railways on Thursday said that it is in discussion with UPSC and DoPT to recruit officers for Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS) via the Civil Services Exam which would be conducted by UPSC for the year 2023-24.
According to the sources, as quoted by The Indian Express, Indian Railways is not ready yet to hold a separate exam for which it will have to support the UPSC in creating one—syllabus. Due to this, the IRMS recruitment this year will happen through the Civil Services Examination. No specific timeline has been given for streamlining this process. The source vaguely added that it will take some time to institutionalise the exam later.
The Indian Railway Management Service exam was supposed to be held in two parts – the First would have been a preliminary screening followed by a written exam and the second would have been an interview round. The IRMSE rules which were notified earlier stated that in order to help Railways separate candidates as per their specialisation, the candidate would have to choose one optional subject from the four subjects namely, Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Commerce and Accountancy.
An official said that in 2019, more than 50% of probationers recruited from the Civil Services Examination were of engineering background, reported IE. According to the original notification which was published in December 2022, the first batch of IRMS recruits was to be taken from the Indian Railway Management Service Examination of UPSC in 2023.