Indian Railways has introduced a major change in appraisal system of the officers wherein their juniors’ view point would now reflect in former’s annual confidential record. The changes in annual performance appraisal reports (APAR) could have severe repercussions on the administration of human resource in the Indian Railways. Through a circular to General Managers, Railway Board has communicated at the new system has been put in place from the reporting year 2022-23. Details on recording remarks about the working of officer from subordinates are explained in a note issued by Vinod Kumar, Under Secretary, Confidential, Railway Board.

The note explains that a link would be sent every year to all the staff of the official to whom the staff reports. Similarly, a link shall also be sent to the Reporting Authority of the said official whose junior would share their remarks. Under the scheme the subordinate staff would be asked to submit their feedback about their superior official in the prescribed format. The remarks of junior staff would remain confidential and Board said that a mechanism was put in place to ensure that official could neither trace the remarks to superior nor to the employees. This abundant precaution was taken to ensure fairness of the system and insulate the same from any external influence. Also the secrecy element is to ensure that junior employees are not targeted in case of adverse remarks.

The Under Secretary mentioned in the circular that junior employees should exercise their right to provide feedback about their superiors in a fair way. The whole exercise should not create mistrust among the superior and employees and hence latter are expected to avoid prejudiced view while recording their observation. The Board has already issued instructions for putting in place database for recording multi source feedback (MSF) of officers while generating the APAR. However it's still not clear what would happen in case majority of junior employees provide negative feedback about their reporting officer. Also, how should superior official form opinion need further clarity before the process get fool proof and bring along transparency in official working, felt the union office bearers. Meanwhile, the link for recording feedback for APAR is enabled on-line in the SPARROW system that is part of human resources management system (HRMS). The remarks against officers would get incorporated in their annual performance appraisal record (APAR) which forms base for promotions as same is clearly spelled out in the instructions released to General Managers of Zones and Production Units.