AS PART of reforms in Indian Railways, Railway Board notified new norms for recording the Annual Performance Appraisal Reports (APARs) of officers. New rule for APARs comes into effect from 2022- 23 annual year onwards, informed the internal note circulated to General Managers by Board. The main thrust of change is introduction of Group Key Performance Indicators (GKPI) and same is to be assessed by the Efficiency and Research Directorate of Railway Board. The new format uploaded by Board reveals that while immediate supervisors would provide 70 per cent marks, the remaining 30 per cent scores are going to be assessed by third party. Till now, performance/grading were completely vested with reviewing/reporting authorities according to the laid down norms. But from next year onwards, as APARs for current year are going to be written later only, officers are going to under pressure to excel not just individually but ensure a collective upgradation. Mean till now every Branch at field level main focus remains on internal excellence, now since division KPI isgoing to have an impact onindividuals APARs, everyone isgoing to naturally step upco-ordination with otherbranches. While the immediate supervisors would record their opinion, the 30 per cent assessmentwould be conveyed throughEfficiency & ResearchDirectorate and same wouldneed to be mandatorily incorporated in APARs of concernedofficers. The detailed methodologyof new rule for writing APARsis already communicated torespective General Managers at Zones, Production Unions, andto Director General, RDSO andTraining Institutions. Although the full impact of the change would be known only after details of the new rules for recording APARs are notified by Board, the mention of Group KPI seems to indicate that Railways wants to stress importance of group performance. APARs more or less indicates individual performance or capacity, the addition of Group KPI marks in the same would henceforth ensure that at division and zone all branches would need to work in close coordination to get better score. Already there exists mechanism wherein 68 divisions of Indian Railways are ranked according to their annual performance. Therefore it is a guess that rank of division would translate into 30 per cent marks to be recorded by Efficiency and Research Directorate. The division KPI is assessed on various parameters ranging from operations, loading and many other factors. While at division level post formation of Business Development Unit (BDU), one can see the increased level of bonding and cooperation among different branches leading to improved performance on loading front. Now that GKPI is also going to have an impact on the APARs of officers in Construction Unit one can expect major changes in working approach. Laying of new lines or ongoing gauge conversion projects or expansion projects are running behind schedule resulting in increased throw forward liability of Indian Railways. This has also held down the potential of divisions who are handicapped in absence of space on clogged networks due to slow progress on laying of new lines within dedicated time period. Hopefully, 30 per cent weightage to Group KPI should correct the anomaly and usher in new professionalism in working of all units.