Indian Railways (Hindi: भारतीय रेल Bhāratīya Rail), abbreviated as IR (Hindi: भा.रे.), is the state-owned railway company of India, which owns and operates most of the country's rail transport. It is overseen by the Ministry of Railways of the Government of India.
Indian Railways has more than 64,015 kilometres (39,777 mi) of track and 6,909 stations. It has the world's fourth largest railway network after that of the United States, Russia and China. The railways traverse the length and breadth of the country and carry over 20 million passengers and 2 million tons of freight daily. It is one of the world's largest commercial or utility employers, with more than 1.6 million employees. As to rolling stock, IR owns over 200,000 (freight) wagons, 50,000 coaches and 8,000 locomotives.
Railways were first introduced to India in 1853. By 1947, the year of India's independence, there were forty-two rail systems. In 1951 the systems were nationalised as one unit, becoming one of the largest networks in the world. IR operates both long distance and suburban rail systems on a multi-gauge network of broad, metre and narrow gauges. It also owns locomotive and coach production facilities.
Initially, the Indian railways were both designed and built by the British, during their colonial rule of the subcontinent.
Indian Railways is divided into zones, which are further sub-divided into divisions. The number of zones in Indian Railways increased from six to eight in 1951, nine in 1952, and finally 16 in 2003. Each zonal railway is made up of a certain number of divisions, each having a divisional headquarters. There are a total of sixty-seven divisions.
The Delhi Metro is owned and operated by Indian Railways, but is not a part of any of the zones. It is administratively considered to have the status of a zonal railway.
Each of the sixteen zones, as well as the Kolkata Metro, is headed by a General Manager (GM) who reports directly to the Railway Board. The zones are further divided into divisions under the control of Divisional Railway Managers (DRM). The divisional officers of engineering, mechanical, electrical, signal and telecommunication, accounts, personnel, operating, commercial and safety branches report to the respective Divisional Manager and are in charge of operation and maintenance of assets. Further down the hierarchy tree are the Station Masters who control individual stations and the train movement through the track territory under their stations' administration
Indian Railways manufactures much of its rolling stock and heavy engineering components at its six manufacturing plants, called Production Units, which are managed directly by the ministry. As with most developing economies, the main reason for this was the policy of import substitution of expensive technology related products when the general state of the national engineering industry was immature. Each of these six production units is headed by a General Manager, who also reports directly to the Railway Board.
There exist independent organisations under the control of the Railway Board for electrification, modernisation and research and design, each of which is headed by a General Manager. A number of Public Sector Undertakings, which perform railway-related functions ranging from consultancy to ticketing, are also under the administrative control of the Ministry of railways.
Sl. No | Name | Abbr. | Date Established | Headquarters | Divisions |
1. | Central | CR | 1951, November 5 | Mumbai | Mumbai, Bhusawal, Pune, Solapur, Nagpur |
2. | East Central | ECR | 2002, October 1 | Hajipur | Danapur, Dhanbad, Mughalsarai, Samastipur, Sonpur |
3. | East Coast | ECoR | 2003, April 1 | Bhubaneswar | Khurda Road, Sambalpur, Visakhapatnam |
4. | Eastern | ER | 1952, April | Kolkata | Howrah, Sealdah, Asansol, Malda |
5. | North Central | NCR | 2003, April 1 | Allahabad | Allahabad, Agra, Jhansi |
6. | North Eastern | NER | 1952 | Gorakhpur | Izzatnagar, Lucknow, Varanasi |
7. | North Western | NWR | 2002, October 1 | Jaipur | Jaipur, Ajmer, Bikaner, Jodhpur |
8. | Northeast Frontier | NFR | 1958 | Guwahati | Alipurduar, Katihar, Rangia, Lumding, Tinsukia |
9. | Northern | NR | 1952, April 14 | Delhi | Delhi, Ambala, Firozpur, Lucknow, Moradabad |
10. | South Central | SCR | 1966, October 2 | Secunderabad | Secunderabad, Hyderabad, Guntakal, Guntur, Nanded,Vijayawada |
11. | South East Central | SECR | 2003, April 1 | Bilaspur | Bilaspur, Raipur, Nagpur |
12. | South Eastern | SER | 1955 | Kolkata | Adra, Chakradharpur, Kharagpur, Ranchi |
13. | South Western | SWR | 2003, April 1 | Hubli | Hubli, Bangalore, Mysore |
14. | Southern | SR | 1951, April 14 | Chennai | Chennai, Madurai, Palakkad, Salem, Tiruchchirapalli,Trivandrum(Thiruvananthapuram) |
15. | West Central | WCR | 2003, April 1 | Jabalpur | Jabalpur, Bhopal, Kota |
16. | Western | WR | 1951, November 5 | Mumbai | Mumbai Central, Ratlam, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Bhavnagar,Vadodara |
Indian Railways manufactures much of its rolling stock and heavy engineering components at its six manufacturing plants, called Production Units, which are managed directly by the ministry. As with most developing economies, the main reason for this was the policy of import substitution of expensive technology related products when the general state of the national engineering industry was immature. Each of these six production units is headed by a General Manager, who also reports directly to the Railway Board.
There exist independent organisations under the control of the Railway Board for electrification, modernisation and research and design, each of which is headed by a General Manager. A number of Public Sector Undertakings, which perform railway-related functions ranging from consultancy to ticketing, are also under the administrative control of the Ministry of railways.
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