New Delhi: The Railway Ministry has discontinued the practice of presenting gold-plated silver medals to retiring officials from Wednesday onwards.
"The practice of presenting Gold-plated Silver Medals to retiring Railway officials may be discontinued. The Silver Medals, which are already procured/available in stock with Railways, may be accounted for and suitably used for other activities, redressing their utilisation concerns," a ministry circular addressed to the heads of all zonal railways and production units said.
Although the circular did not provide any reason, officials raised various concerns, including poor medal quality supplied by outsourced vendors and cost-cutting measures as silver has become very expensive.
"There have been a couple of cases in the past few years in which the silver in the medals supplied by the vendors was of very poor quality or even fake. This might be one of the concerns to discontinue the practice," a senior official said.
"As the cost of silver has gone up several times in the past 20 years, there seems to be an effort to cut down unnecessary expenditure," another official said.
Almost 20 years ago in March 2006, the ministry had decided to present all railway servants who seek voluntary retirement or superannuate in normal course with a gold-plated silver medal weighing around 20 grams.
Initially, the medal was designed with the Indian Railways logo on one side along with the name or logo of the concerned railway zone or production unit (PU) on the other side.
The expenditure was placed under the head of 'Unclassified miscellaneous'.
The ministry had clarified that besides weighing 20 grams, the silver used in the medal would be of 99.9 per cent purity.
In 2008, the Board modified its order and discontinued the use of the logo of the concerned railway or production unit on one side of the medal. Instead, it said that the Indian Railways' logo continued to be shown on one side and only the name of the zonal railway/ PU on the other side.
Now, with the circular dated January 28, it has discontinued the practice with immediate effect.
"The practice of presenting Gold-plated Silver Medals to retiring Railway officials may be discontinued. The Silver Medals, which are already procured/available in stock with Railways, may be accounted for and suitably used for other activities, redressing their utilisation concerns," a ministry circular addressed to the heads of all zonal railways and production units said.
Although the circular did not provide any reason, officials raised various concerns, including poor medal quality supplied by outsourced vendors and cost-cutting measures as silver has become very expensive.
"There have been a couple of cases in the past few years in which the silver in the medals supplied by the vendors was of very poor quality or even fake. This might be one of the concerns to discontinue the practice," a senior official said.
"As the cost of silver has gone up several times in the past 20 years, there seems to be an effort to cut down unnecessary expenditure," another official said.
Almost 20 years ago in March 2006, the ministry had decided to present all railway servants who seek voluntary retirement or superannuate in normal course with a gold-plated silver medal weighing around 20 grams.
Initially, the medal was designed with the Indian Railways logo on one side along with the name or logo of the concerned railway zone or production unit (PU) on the other side.
The expenditure was placed under the head of 'Unclassified miscellaneous'.
The ministry had clarified that besides weighing 20 grams, the silver used in the medal would be of 99.9 per cent purity.
In 2008, the Board modified its order and discontinued the use of the logo of the concerned railway or production unit on one side of the medal. Instead, it said that the Indian Railways' logo continued to be shown on one side and only the name of the zonal railway/ PU on the other side.
Now, with the circular dated January 28, it has discontinued the practice with immediate effect.
