New Delhi, Jan 24: On Thursday, the first full rake of foodgrain (rice) reached Anantnag, marking a major milestone in freight transportation to Kashmir and showcasing the strength of all-weather rail connectivity to the region.

An official spokesman in a statement issued here said that in a first-of-its-kind achievement, a complete rake comprising 42 wagons carrying 2768 metric tonnes of rice was transported to the Anantnag goods shed by rail, following sustained coordination with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) to reduce logistics costs.

Earlier, only mini rakes comprising 21 wagons carrying 1384 metric tonnes of foodgrain were moved by rail.

However, this time the full rake was successfully loaded from the Sangrur rail terminal in Punjab on January 21 and transported to Anantnag within 24 hours.

Despite adverse weather conditions that had disrupted unloading activities a day earlier, the rake was successfully handled, providing a significant boost to the foodgrain supply chain and distribution network in Kashmir.

The milestone marks an important beginning in strengthening the foodgrain distribution network in Kashmir.

The transition from mini rakes and road-based transportation to full-capacity railway wagons is expected to significantly reduce overall logistics and freight costs while ensuring faster and more reliable movement of essential commodities.

It would help maintain adequate buffer stocks in Kashmir, particularly during adverse weather conditions, and improve the availability of foodgrains for local households.

Reduced reliance on heavy truck traffic along national highways would also contribute to environmental benefits and improved efficiency.

Building on the successful movement of apples, cement, fertiliser, and now foodgrain, the rail-based logistics is supporting sustained economic activity, resilience, and long-term supply chain stability in the region.

The developments underline the transformative impact of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL), one of the most ambitious railway engineering projects in independent India.

Even as Kashmir experiences snowfall and challenging winter conditions, improved rail connectivity is strengthening trade and logistics, directly benefiting farmers, traders, and households by ensuring more dependable access to essential goods.

New Delhi, Jan 24: In a major move, the Centre has introduced a new policy for allocation of cadres to civil servants of three key central services with the introduction of new groupings for their postings, among others.

In the recently issued policy for the officers of Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS) and Indian Forest Service (IFoS), it said that ministries concerned will determine the vacancies on the basis of “cadre gap” as on January 1 of a year.

The cadre or joint cadre refers to a state or group of states or Union territories allocated to the officers of these three services, also known as all India services.

It has abolished the earlier five zones’ system for allocation of cadres and introduced new groupings in which “all the state cadres/joint cadres have been arranged in alphabetical order and divided into four groups”.

Group-I has AGMUT (Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territory), Andhra Pradesh, Assam-Meghalaya, Bihar and Chhattisgarh, and Group-II includes Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh.

Group-III comprises Maharashtra, Manipur, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim and Tamil Nadu, whereas Group-IV has Telangana, Tripura, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, according to the policy issued by the Union Personnel Ministry on January 23.

The cadre-controlling authorities, namely, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) / Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) / Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MOEF&CC) shall determine the vacancies, including the break-up into unreserved (UR)/ Scheduled Caste (SC) / Scheduled Tribe (ST) / Other Backward Classes (OBC)/ Insider/ Outsider vacancies for each of the cadres.

The cadre-wise/category-wise vacancies will be determined on the basis of the “cadre gap as on the 1st January of the year following the examination year”.

The IAS, IPS and IFoS officers are shortlisted through a three-layer civil services examination.

The state governments shall indicate the total number of vacancies to be filled through a particular civil services examination (CSE)/Indian Forest Service examination latest by the 31st January of the year following the year of examination.

In respect of the services under them, the respective cadre-controlling authorities shall determine the vacancies including the break-up into different categories (ie, UR/SC/ST/OBC) “keeping in mind the cadre gap in the cadre, the requisitions received from the state governments and the position of the rosters in the cadre”.

The vacancies reserved for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) category for recruitment, shall be considered a part of the UR vacancies only, it said.

The vacancies so determined would be communicated to the state governments and published on the respective ministry’s website.

Both the actions may preferably be completed before the announcement of the final result of the civil services examination/ Indian Forest Service examination on the basis of which the recruitment is to be made, the policy read.

Since this would be a time-bound exercise, the requisition received from the state governments after the deadline, as prescribed by the central government, would not be considered while determining the vacancies, it specified.

Giving details on allocation against insider vacancies (candidates opting for their home state), it said that cadre will be given on the basis of a “cycle-based” slotting system.

“For allocation to home cadre against an insider vacancy, a candidate will be required to express his/her willingness to be allocated to his/her home state/cadre, otherwise he/she shall not be considered for his/her home cadre at all,” the policy said.

The allocation against the “outsider vacancies” (vacancies earmarked for candidates outside their home state) will be done according to the roster system after placing ‘insiders’ at their proper places on the allocation chart, and will be done in two stages, ie, first for PwBD (persons with benchmark disabilities) candidates and second for other than PwBD candidates, it said.

A candidate claiming benefit of reservation under the PwBD category shall have an additional option to indicate his/her preference (at the time of indicating his home state) for any one cadre (other than home cadre), the policy said.

“This cadre allocation policy issues in supersession of the existing cadre allocation policy and comes into effect with the Civil Services Examination-2026 and Indian Forest Service Examination-2026,” it added.

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