And why Jamalpur will still have a hold for quite some

time to come?
Response to Bibek Debroy
Jagdeep S. Chhokari
I was quite excited when I came across Bibek Debroys Why Jamalpur still has a
hold (http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/bibek-debroy-whyjamalpur-still-has-a-hold-116040801191_1.html) by accident but as I read
through it, my excitement gave way to very different sentiments which I will
explain shortly. But before that, in the spirit of full disclosure, let me declare that
I spent four years at the Institute that Debroy has written about though I left the
Railways a long time ago but I continue to be what Debroy might say from
Jamalpur.
Before I get down to sentiments, let me put the record straight on some things
that Debroy has stated in his personal views. I will do that in chronological
order as they appear in Debroys piece.
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, says Debroy.
The first sentence of the above quote is obviously correct but I do not know on
what basis Debroy has said that once you have cleared the exam, you join the
IR as a Group A officer. When I cleared the exam more than 50 years ago, I
was appointed as a Special Class Apprentice in the Transportation (Power)
Department of the Superior Revenue Establishment of the Indian Railways. I
became a Group A officer of the IR (Indian Railways) after clearing twelve (yes,
twelve) internal assessments, eight theoretical and four practical, and three
external examinations then conducted by the Institutions of Mechanical
Engineers (London). My batch was lucky as all of us 20 made it but the three
batches before us were not so as some of them could not make it and did not
become Group A officers of IR.
Debroy repeats the same in the same paragraph, presumably, in the hope that a
false statement made repeatedly might acquire the semblance of truth. The
repetition says After clearing the SCRA, one joins the Indian Railway Service of
Mechanical Engineering (IRSME).
The next noteworthy statement is 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.
The underlined part is the key. Once again, I have no idea where Debroy gets it
from. Civil engineering was never part of the SCRA portfolio.

The next interesting bit is 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).
How I wish Debroy was right! The myth of SCRAs being younger than their
counterparts in the IRSME has been around almost for ever but it has also been
busted by several High Court and Supreme Court judgments. What is even more
amazing is You go on to become member (mechanical) and perhaps CRB
(chairman, Railway Board).
Let me, again, share my personal knowledge since this is indeed a personal view.
In my own batch and the two batches senior to me and one batch junior to mine,
not one person out of about 60 made it to member (mechanical) or CRB! In the
face of this, I cannot but marvel at Debroys personal views.
The next set of statements take the cake. 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?
These take the cake because most senior people you meet in the IR are not
even from IRSME of which Jamalpur is a small part! I really wonder at the quality
of information that Debroy had access to during the course of the proceedings of
the committee that he headed.
The other bit, about not wanting to scrap the SCRA, my impression is that the
decision to scrap it has already been taken. I guess the parenthetical statement
(its a little less now) is prompted by this knowledge of the scrapping of the
scheme. I wonder why Debroy stopped short of sharing this news with his
readers.
The literary touch by quoting Rudyard Kiplings writing of 1888 is admirable but
the insinuation that most people who join or did join Jamalpur as SCRAs had
fathers working in the railways. Going by my personal experience again, there
were hardly one or two such people in the seven batches that I overlapped with
over fifty years ago.
Now to sentiments. What is disturbing is the attempt to defame an institution
through the use of innuendos and plain falsehoods. As mentioned, the SCRA
scheme seems to have been closed down already. Those who want to celebrate,
will celebrate and those who feel remorseful, will feel remorseful but the use of
chicanery like this is to try and beat a dead horse is certainly not dignified.
Why Jamalpur will still have a hold for quite some time to come is because the
institution has an 89-year old history of inculcating a set of values which
reinforce institutional and organisational commitment of the kind that powersthat-be today have no use for or possibly do not even understand. But these are
the values which pervaded Indian Railways of yore, and not only among SCRAs,
that have stood IR in good stead for over 160 years. It is the erosion of such
values over the last few years that has brought IR to the condition that it is in.
And those who have passed through the portals of this glorious institution will
continue to contribute to national welfare whether in the railways or outside it,
and irrespective of whether their tribe increases or dwindles. The nation has lost
several institutions and the loss of one more will perhaps not matter in our

pursuit of the elusive modernisation dream, not through hard work with the
nose to the grindstone but through slogans and sleighs of hand.

i Jagdeep S. Chhokar is a former Professor, Dean, and Director In-charge of IIM,

Ahmedabad, and an alumnus of the Indian Railways Institute of Mechanical and
Electrical Engineering at Jamalpur. Views are personal.