Indian Railway organisational structure

The Indian Railways is organized broadly by functional groups of Indian Railway Service. This is traditionally how the co-operation is organized. The Indian Railways perhaps has been less adventurous. It has largely kept up what it has, as a legacy, since the British era.

Railway Board

The apex management organisation is the Railway Board, also called the Ministry of Railways. The board is headed by a Chairman who directly reports to the Railway Minister In charge. The board has five other members in addition to the chairman.

The General Managers of the zonal railways and the production units report to the board.

Functional branches

The various Group A cadres are as below:

Non Technical Services recruitment through Civil Services Examination conducted by UPSC

Technical Services recruitment through Indian Engineering Services Examination conducted by UPSC

Medical Services recruitment through Combined medical Examination conducted by UPSC

India's vast rail system, the third largest in the world, is managed by regional levels. Indian Railways has divided itself into sixteen zonal railways. Each zone, headed by a General Manager, is semi-autonomous and this creates a matrix organization where the functional branches are under dual control viz.

Zonal management

Indian Railway zonal map

The current 16 zones of the Indian Railways are

Name Abbr. Headquarters
Central Railway CR Mumbai
Eastern Railway ER Kolkata
East Central Railway ECR Hajipur
East Coast Railway ECoR Bhubaneswar
Northern Railway NR Delhi
North Central Railway NCR Allahabad
North Western Railway NWR Jaipur
North Eastern Railway NER Gorakhpur
Northeast Frontier Railway NFR Maligaon(Guwahati)
Southern Railway SR Chennai
South Central Railway SCR Secunderabad
South Eastern Railway SER Kolkata
South East Central Railway SECR Bilaspur, CG
South Western Railway SWR Hubli
Western Railway WR Mumbai
West Central Railway WCR Jabalpur

Divisional organisation

The Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) heads the organization at the division level. There are currently 71 divisions on the system nationwide. The divisions are primarily involved with train running but may have loco sheds (repair shops for locomotives), coaching depots (repair home bases for passenger trains) and wagon depots (repair and maintenance points for freight stock).

Each division has all the functional (both line and staff) organizations. The heads of these functional groups report to the DRM for administrative purposes but rely on guidance from the railway board and the zonal headquarters for policy guidelines.

See also

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