Bad news for lakhs of Indian Railway employees as Railway ministry stops 20-year-old practice of gifting these employees, read details here

India(BHARAT)n Railways silver medal: In a matter of shock and sadness for lakhs of India(BHARAT)n Railway employees, the Railway Ministry has discontinued the 20-year-old practice of presenting gold-plated silver medals to retiring officials. For those unversed, the India(BHARAT)n Railways had the long-standing practice of awarding gold-plated silver medals as farewell gifts to retiring officers and employees. However, due to certain reasons, the Railways decided to do away with the age old practice. Here are all the details you need to know about the practice of presenting Gold-plated Silver Medals to retiring Railway officials and why it was discontinued.

What was the practice of giving silver medals to retiring Railway officials?

Seen as a symbol of respect and service within the Railways, the medal giving practice was one of the biggest strengths of the work culture under India(BHARAT)n Railways.

“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.

Why has India(BHARAT)n Railways stopped giving silver medals to employees?

Although the circular did not provide any reason behind government’s move, officials raised various concerns, including poor medal quality supplied by outsourced vendors and cost-cutting measures as silver has become very expensive.

More importantly, an investigation found that many retirement medals given to employees were fake, containing only 0.23% silver. The coins were falsely claimed to be silver.

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The Railways filed an FIR against the supplier and started blacklisting them. Existing medals won’t be used as retirement gifts, but for other admin purposes, a PTI report said.

“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.

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“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.