Indian Railway Stores Service

The Indian Railways Stores Service (IRSS) is a cadre of the Government of India. The officers of this service are the procurement and logistics specialists , contract managers on the IR ,providers of logistics for the transportation of material from and within various railways as well as the palnners and maintainers of the intelligent warehousing with automated storage and retrival systems on the Indian Railways.

Recruitment

This is a full fledged service of the Indian Railways where only engineering graduates from prestigious universities are recruited through the Indian Engineering Services Exam conducted by the UPSC. [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

The members of the IRSS on the Indian Railways are the procurement and logistics specialist of the Indian Railways responsible for procurement of various goods and services for the Indian Railways to the tune of Rs.18600 Crorers per annum as well as the disposal of scrap to the tune of Rs. 1600 Crorers per annum which is in the form of auction and sale of electric and diesel locomotives,old coaches and wagons as well as old bridge structures along with the Rails released from the gauge conversion activities. (above figures are as per latest IR-Yearbook)

The also manage huge warehouses attached with the major coaching and wagon workshops as well as the electric and diesel locomotive sheds.

They are the logistics managers as far as the transportation of material through the road is concerned.

Organisation

The department is organised in three tiers. The top tier is at the Railway Board level, the second tier at the Zonal Railway level and the third tier at the divisional or the district level.

At the apex level, this department is headed by Member Mechanical who represents the departmnet at the Railway Board level. ("This department on date does not have a member of its own . The post of Member, Materials Management has not yet been operated because of internicine rivalry between the various departments of the Indian Railways,. )"

Additional Member, Railway stores is the functional head of the department at the Railway Board level. He is inturn is assisted by various executive directors such as EDRS(G), EDRS(C), EDRS(S), EDRS(P). The executive directors are assisted by the directors and Dy. Directors. The various dierectors in the stores directorate are DRS(IC), DRS(W), DRS(F), DRS(POL), DRS(M) and DP&S)

At the zonal levels , the principal head of the department is COS( Controller of Stores). The COS is assisted by 2 to 3 CMM( Chief Materials Managers). Theses CMM's in turn have various Dy.CMM (Dy. Chief Materials Managers). The in turn are assisted by the SMM( Senior Materials Manager) & the AMM ( Assistant Materials Managers)

References

Centralised Training Institutes of the Indian Railways

Indian Railway Organisational Structure

External links