IRMS officers recruited through CSE in 2022, 2023, and 2024 can now choose between Traffic, Accounts, and Personnel streams, as announced by the Railway Board.
The Railway Board has announced that officers recruited through the Civil Services Examination (CSE) in 2022, 2023, and 2024 for the Indian Railway Management Services (IRMS) will be given the option to choose between the streams of Traffic, Accounts, and Personnel.
Following a change in the recruitment pattern for officers of eight Group A services in 2019, two batches of officers were recruited in 2022 and 2023, while the recruitment process for the third batch is currently underway through the CSE in 2024.
The Railway Ministry has decided to revert to the pre-2019 examination pattern as per a Gazette notification issued on October 9, 2024, which will be applicable starting in 2025.
According to a written communication from the Railway Board to the Director General of the Indian Railway Institute of Transport Management (IRITM), the probationers from the 2022, 2023, and 2024 batches will be allowed to opt for one of the three sub-cadres of IRMS: Traffic, Personnel, or Accounts.
The letter stated, “DG (IRITM) shall be the competent authority to allocate the above-mentioned three sub-cadres based on the options exercised by the probationers on joining IRITM.”
Additionally, the Railway Ministry has confirmed that, beginning in 2025, officers will be recruited into the eight sub-cadres of IRMS through both the Civil Services Exam (CSE) and the Engineering Services Exam (ESE), as per amendments to the Recruitment Rules (RRs) of IRMS, which were published in the Gazette of India on October 9, 2024.
In 2019, the Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the unification of the eight Group A services of the railways into a central service called the Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS), with recruitment conducted through a single examination – the CSE.
Prior to 2019, three non-technical branches of railway services – the Indian Railway Personnel Service (IRPS), the Indian Railway Accounts Service (IRAS), and the Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS) – were recruited through the CSE, while five technical branches – the Indian Railway Service of Signal Engineers (IRSSE), Indian Railway Service of Engineers (IRES), Indian Railway Service of Electrical Engineers (IRSEE), Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineers (IRSME), and Indian Railway Stores Services (IRSS) – were recruited through the Engineering Services Exam (ESE)
(This story has been slightly reworked from an auto-generated PTI feed.)