This is how Railways is ensuring its officials work efficiently

With an aim to ensure all senior officials take their work seriously, the railway board has started rating its 16 zones. This might prove helpful as the performance of the zones will be reflected in their promotion and career progression.

According to the latest rating by the railway board between April and December 2016, South Eastern Railway headquartered in Kolkata is on the top while North Eastern Railway with its head office in Gorakhpur has got the last rank. Northern Railway, with its headquarters in Delhi a few kilometres from the railway board office, was third from last.

This private sector like appraisal system, under Suresh Prabhu, will make the officials serious about their jobs as the career graph of top officers will depend on the amount of money they have helped the state-run transporter earn, physical assets they have helped create and punctuality of trains.

The ranking is based on a sof 17 key performance indicators (KPIs) such as operational and financial performance measured by passenger traffic and freight loading among others. The KPIs have been made part of the annual performance appraisal reports (APARs) of general managers, divisional railway managers and departmental heads in zonal railways.

"Zonal railways are being evaluated as per relative performance on each indicator by comparing the targets fixed for each one after much deliberation," a senior official told ET.

Zonal and divisional units were asked for targets for the year. Now, each general manager, DRM and departmental heads are being evaluated against his/her own targets.