Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu is credited with carrying out comprehensive exercises to cut the inter-cadre rivalries in the organization. The national transporter has  as many as eight Group A service cadres (including technical & non-technical) and these often tend to act according to the convenience of their cadres.  In the process, the railways suffer a lack of coordination and professionalism. The plan is to reduce the number of cadres to merely two. After detailed and exhaustive consultation and deliberations, Prabhu is said to be ready with a note for the Cabinet approval to merge Civil Engineering, Mechanical, Electrical, Stores and Signalling into a single cadre of Indian Railways technical service. Similarly, Traffic, Personnel, and Accounts Service are proposed to be merged into the non-technical category. This may be the first serious attempt to address "departmentalism" in the Railways through a process of mergers and restructuring of cadres. Recruitment, of course, will continue to be conducted through UPSC exams. The move will not have financial implications for the government and is not expected to face opposition at the highest level. In view of political and administrative convenience, Prabhu may place his proposal before the Cabinet later this month. If cleared, fresh recruits in 2017 will be inducted into two categories. In addition to the merger of Group A Services, the Railway Ministry may allow lateral entry of external talent for one senior position in the railway board, reorganise the top decision-making body on functional lines and rework the policy of appointments of GMs and DRMs to eliminate discretion. Indeed, a ministerial panel, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has favored reorganizing the railway board on functional lines by creating posts of Member (Infrastructure), Member (Rolling stock),  and Member (Traction). At present, the board has members dealing with different departments such as engineering, traffic, mechanical, and other staff, apart from the financial commissioner. There is a Member in charge of each department like Member (Engineering), Member (Mechanical), Member (Electrical), Member (Staff), Member (Traffic), Financial Commissioner. Over the years, inter-services rivalry has often resulted in the blocking of key projects, impacting the government's efforts to upgrade the decaying rail infrastructure. While reserving the post of members for different railway services, the inter-ministerial panel has also decided to create posts of DGs in railway board for three services - personnel, signal and telecom, and stores -which don't have representation as members. In another move, the ACC has decided to discontinue entry of officers through the Special Class Railway Apprentice Examination (SCRA) in Indian Railway Services for mechanical engineers. Started in 1927, the SCRA involved selection to the undergraduate programme in mechanical engineering at the Indian Railway Institute of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering (IRIMEE) at Jamalpur. Jamalpur graduates - being the youngest to enter railway service - have usually had a disproportionately high share of senior level posts as divisional railway managers (DRMs) and general managers (GMs). The selection process for GMs and DRMs is also being changed drastically to eliminate discretion in top level appointments which were mired in controversy during the UPA regime due to alleged corrupt practices, highlighted by the arrest of railway board member Mahesh Kumar and