Bibek Debroy: Why Jamalpur still has a hold

In the Indian Railways (IR), it is impossible to get away from Jamalpur. This is where the East Indian Railway Company established its first railway workshop in 1862. Why choose Jamalpur, adjacent to Munger? I once asked the late Brijmohan Lall Munjal why Ludhiana became a cycle-manufacturing centre. There are always multiple reasons. He mentioned World War II and consequent supplies of armaments, using machines easily adaptable to cycle-making. (That argument also extends to uniforms and woollen garments.) For years, even centuries, Munger has been a centre for making guns, not only legal, but also of the illegal and cottage variety. That's a standard reason given for choosing Munger - tradition of making guns, pistols, spears and other ironwork. Plus, one was trying to construct a railway line from Howrah to Delhi and that might have been through Munger/Jamalpur. But a shorter line (Grand Chord or main line) developed via Gaya/Mughalsarai and the entire so-called Sahibganj Loop, including Munger/Jamalpur, became relatively neglected. No doubt, these reasons have some element of truth, but I particularly like another story. Most employees in the railway workshop then were British. As long as the workshop was in Howrah, they were found more at hotels, restaurants and billiard-rooms instead of the workshop even during working hours. Hence, the workshop was shifted from Howrah to Jamalpur, more than 450 km away.

Today, the best years of that workshop are over, though it still does some repairs and minor manufacturing, a far cry from the days when steam locomotives were manufactured. But Jamalpur also houses the Indian Railways Institute of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering (IRIMEE). It started as a technical school and then ventured into short-term training for apprentices and supervisors. The Indian Railways (IR) actually has seven such training institutes - IRIMEE, National Academy of Indian Railways (NAIR, Vadodara), Indian Railways Institute of Civil Engineering (Pune), Indian Railways Institute of Signal Engineering and Telecommunications (Secunderabad), Indian Railways Institute of Electrical Engineering (Nasik), Indian Railways Institute of Transport Management (Lucknow) and Jagjivan Ram Railway Protection Force Academy (Lucknow). There will now be a full-fledged Railway University, initially in NAIR, and eventually, there may be three more. Naturally, there would be issues of integrating these universities with the existing training institutes. Understandably, there are differences between in-service training for apprentices, supervisors and officers, and training that leads to new entry. On new entry of officers, IRIMEE in Jamalpur has Special Class Railway Apprentices' Examination (SCRA), now confined to mechanical engineering placement in the IR.

Sure, the SCRA is conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). But once you have cleared the exam, you join the IR as a Group A officer. All that is required is passing the intermediate examination or its equivalent (Class XII), with mathematics and either physics or chemistry. Hence, a candidate who passes the SCRA is between 17 and 21 years of age. Note that the British started the SCRA in 1927, when there was no UPSC. After clearing the SCRA, one joins the Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineering (IRSME). The number of seats varies from year to year. I am told it is around 40 and the selection ratio is one per 10,000 applicants. (I have also been given lower figures of 30.) There are, of course, reservations for SCs, STs, OBCs and the physically handicapped. Hence, the open/general intake is probably around 20. However, simultaneously there is the UPSC's Indian Engineering Services (IES) exam. This is taken by candidates who pass out from the Indian Institutes of Technology or the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. The exam isn't conducted only for the IR. However, for mechanical engineering, the IRSME is part of the basket. The IES also leads to entry into other engineering services in the IR, civil, electrical and electronics and telecommunication. But this isn't terrain covered by Jamalpur. With civil engineering no longer part of its portfolio, the SCRA is only into mechanical engineering.

Therein lies the problem. Perhaps, half the intake in the IRSME is through Jamalpur and the SCRA, the remaining through the IES. If you join through the SCRA, you are younger when you join the IR. With existing IR silos, you move up faster. You go on to become member (mechanical) and perhaps CRB (chairman, Railway Board). While studying, and getting a degree through the Birla Institute of Technology, you get a stipend, dearness allowance, medical care, free travel. Quite unlike the IES entry, where, as long as you are studying, you get none of these. Is it surprising that most senior people you meet in the IR are from Jamalpur (it's a little less now)? Is it surprising they don't want to scrap the SCRA, despite the UPSC arguing for it? In 1888, Rudyard Kipling was uncharitable about Jamalpur. "Naturally, a father who has worked for the line expects the line to do something for the son; and the line is not backward in meeting his wishes where possible… You see all those men turning brass and looking after the machinery?... They bring on their sons as soon as they are old enough to do anything, and the Company rather encourages it. You see the father is in a way responsible for his son, and he'll teach him all he knows, and in that way the Company has a hold on them all." Jamalpur still has a hold.

The writer is a member of the National Institution for Transforming India Aayog. The views are personal