Indian Railway Service of Signal Engineers

The Indian Railway Service of Signal Engineers(IRSSE) is a cadre of the Government of India. The officers of this service are responsible for managing the Signals and Telecommunications Engineering Organisation of the Indian Railways

History

This section needs to be updated. When was the IRSSE started? Who conducted the exam? Who or which service looked after the work of signalling on the company railways since the advent of railways in India in 1853?

Recruitment

The recruitment to the cadre is done through the Indian Engineering Services exam held every year. Graduate Engineers of Electronics and Telecom Engineering are normally recruited for this service.

The selection exam is conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) of India. The UPSC is responsible for recruiting middle and top-level bureaucrats for the Government of India.

Role and Function

Functional Role : The service abbreviated as IRSSE has the job of Managing the vast Signalling and Telecommunication (S&T) infrastructure of the Indian Railways. This basically is techno-managerial in nature.

The Signalling is a function essential for Safe Train operations and Maximizing the utilization of fixed and moving assets (Train rakes, locos, Track, Over Head Power Eqpt etc). Telecom on the other hand caters for Both Safety related , Operational and Administrative communication needs of the Huge IR network. The Copper Cable, Optical Fibre Telecom and Microwave Links span several Lakh km.

General Management: Like all other IR Engineering (IRSE, IRSEE, IRSME) and Civil service Cadres (like IRTS, IRPS and IRAS) , the IRSSE has the responsibility of contributing to the General management of railways. In IR, the general management posts are GM (general manager), DRM (Divisional Railway Manager), SDGM (Senior Deputy General Manager and CVO and the posts of Chief Safety Officers(CSO) and SrDSO.

Organisation

APEX LEVEL :The S&T Organization is headed at apex level (ie Railway Board) by ML (Member-eLectrical)who heads Electrical and S&T branches. He is assisted by two Addl Secy rank (equivalent to GM) officers v.i.z Additional Member (Signal) and AM(tele).

ZONES :The Indian Railways has 16 Zonal Railways with an average Track length of about 4000 km and average staff strength of about 80,000 headed by GMs. The Zonal Organizational structure of Signal Engineers is headed by CSTE (Chief S&T Engr) who is assisted by CSE (Chief Signal Engr), CCE (Chief Telecom Enr), CSTE (Planning), CSTE(Projects) and CSTE(Construction) and DyCSTEs, SSTEs etc.

DIVISIONS : Each Zone is divided into 4-7 Divisions each with an average track length of about 1000 km and staff strength of about 15000 headed overall by DRM (Divisional Railway Manager).

At this Level the Signal Engineers are Headed by SrDSTE (Senior Divisional S&T Engineer) who is in turn assisted by DSTEs and ADSTEs. An IRSSE officer starts ihis career as an ADSTE who is the Team leader of about 100-200 staff.

Namesake

The IRSSE is not to be confused with the IRSE or Institution of Railway Signal Engineers.

References

Centralised Training Institutes of the Indian Railways

Indian Railway Organisational Structure

External links

* [http://indiarail.info/ir-info.html Indian Railways Information]