Indian Railways organisational structure


The Indian Railways are broadly organised from functional groups within the Indian Railway Service. India's rail system is managed at a regional level since Indian Railways have divided themselves into eighteen zonal railways. Each zone, headed by a General Manager, is semi-autonomous and this creates a matrix organisation where the functional branches are under dual control viz.
At the apex of the management organisation is the Railway Board, a part of the Ministry of Railways. The board is headed by a Chairman who directly reports to the Railway Minister. The board has five other members.
The General Managers of the zonal railways and the production units report to the Board.

Zonal management

The current 18 zones of the Indian Railways are
NameAbbr.Headquarters
Central RailwayCRMumbai
Eastern RailwayERKolkata
East Central RailwayECRHajipur
East Coast RailwayECoRBhubaneswar
Northern RailwayNRDelhi
North Central RailwayNCRAllahabad
North Western RailwayNWRJaipur
North Eastern RailwayNERGorakhpur
Northeast Frontier RailwayNFRMaligaon
Southern RailwaySRChennai
South Central RailwaySCRSecunderabad
South Coast RailwaySCoRVisakhapatnam
South Eastern RailwaySERKolkata
South East Central RailwaySECRBilaspur, CG
South Western RailwaySWRHubballi

Western Railway		WRMumbai
West Central RailwayWCRJabalpur
Metro RailwayMTPKolkata

Divisional organisation

The Divisional Railway Manager heads the organisation at the division level. There are currently 71 divisions on the system nationwide. The divisions are primarily involved with train running but may also have locomotive sheds, coaching depots, and wagon depots.
Each division has all the functional organisations. The heads of these functional groups report to the DRM for administrative purposes but rely on the railway board and the zonal headquarters for policy guidelines.

Cadres

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