Multiple meetings hamper officers' field presence: Southern Railway to senior officials

New Delhi, Sep 23 (PTI) The Southern Railway has instructed its senior officers to limit review meetings and allow branch officers to spend adequate time in field work.

In an official communication, R N Singh, General Manager, Southern Railway, has said principal heads of departments (PHODs), heads of departments (HODs), divisional railway managers (DRMs) and additional railway managers (ADRMs) are holding review meetings with lower-level officials almost all day, hampering the latter's field presence.

"It has been observed that too many review meetings are being held by PHODs/HODs/ DRMs/ADRMs with Branch Officers/Field Officers which extend almost all days of week in addition to the VCs being held by (Railway) Board, due to which, the BOs/Field Officers are hardly left with adequate time for their own office work and field work/field inspections," Singh said.

"It is directed that all such routine review meetings by PHODs/HODs/DRMs/ADRMs with BOS should be kept only on Monday/Tuesday (unless necessitated due to urgency/exceptional situations), so that the BOs/Field Officers should remain mostly free from Wednesday to Saturday to carry out their own field work/office work." Singh said the DRMs and PHODs should not ask the branch and field officers to attend the review meetings held by the Railway Board through video-conferencing.

"All meetings by PHODs/HODs/DRMs (on Monday/Tuesday) should be agenda based, well structured (in pre-decided PPT templates), paperless, focussed and to the point, and number of participants should be limited to the relevant/concerned BOs only and lower-level field officials should not be mandated to attend such meetings," Singh said.

Asking all senior officials to take note of his instructions, he said, "Non-compliance of above will be viewed seriously." PTI JP RC