IRCA:Directorate

As stated earlier a Mechanical Engineers Committee was established under IRCA in early part of the 20th century for prescribing common standards for wagon/carriage maintenance. Based on the recommendations of the Mechanical Committee maintenance standards for wagons and coaches were complied in IRCA Conference Rules, Part III and IV respectively, which are in force on all Indian Railways even now.

Introduced initially with a view to forcing the private owned railways to strictly observe the prescribed maintenance standards in interchangeable wagons and also to ensure that wagons once placed in a Sick line or a workshop, got through attention irrespective of their ownership, the Neutral Control Organization has been retained even after nationalization of the Railways in view of the high standard of its examination, impartial and objective reports and as necessary independent quality control check on the sick lines and Workshops.

This work (NC Examination) has been successful and the standard of examination has been highly appreciated by various Committees viz., Kunzroo Committee, Wanchoo Committee, Sikri Committee and Railway Safety Review Committee.

Prior to 1969, the N.C. staff were posted at almost all the interchange points and used to conduct examination of trains. In 1969 there was change in the traffic pattern and it was thought that instead of yard examination there should be greater emphasis on the rolling stock examination in workshops/sick lines whereas the yard examination was restricted to eight marshalling yards only. In the year 1992, Railway Board reviewed the deployment of N.C staff and ordered to withdraw N.C staff from yards to re-deploy them in more workshops and sick-lines where there were ROH of UIC bogie wagons, BOXN/BCN wagons, CRT and Tank wagons.

In the year 1993, Railway Board decided to bring down the staff strength of N.C Organization and sanctioned strength of N.C staff was revised to 560 and subsequently to 528 following the closure of Interchange point at East Dock Jn. of C.P.T (Railway). Subsequently the Board decided that N.C staff should be posted only in workshops and ROH depots and N.C. examination in un-important sick lines without ROH work should be discontinued. The target of reduction of Strength to 528 will be achieved by 01-08-2007.

At present the N.C staff are posted in 33 workshops, and 38 ROH depots all over Indian Railways (Annexure-1). Nine flying squad batches operate at six different points viz. IRCA/Hd.Qr./NDLS (2 batches) ANCO office/Mumbai, Chitpur & Andal of Eastern Railway, Khanalampura of Northern Railway, Tondiarpet of Southern Railway, Bhilai of South East Central Railway, New Katni Junction of West Central Railway and one Sample check batch at ANCO office/Kolkata for conducting regular monthly checks on originating/Terminating Premium End to End & C.C. freight rakes over Indian Railways and joint sample cecks of wagons interchanged with seven steel plants viz. Durgapur & IISCO/Hirapur over Eastern Railway, Visakhapatnam over East Coast Railway, Tatanagar, Raurkela, Bokara & IISCO/Burupur over South Eastern Railway and Bhilai over South East Central Railway as directed by Railway Board.

Due to acute shortage of supervisors, above checks are managing with only four supervisors posted at ANCO office/Mumbai, Chitpur/Eastern Railway, Tondiarpet/Southern Railway and ANCO office/Kolkata.

In addition to this special checks/Surveys are also conducted as desired by Railway Board time to time.

The usefulness of N.C examination has emerged as essential and inevitable in various ways when serious unsafe defects in Rolling Stock have been detected by N.C staff in repaired stock in workshop & ROH depot at final stage of dispatch for traffic use. Such unsafe stocks are detained/ rejected by N.C staff and Railway staff in the interest of Safety attends the defects.

The Quarterly Report submitted by the NC Organization to the Chief Mechanical Engineers of all railways and to Mechanical & Safety Directorates of the Board is an exhaustive critical study of the quality of work being done in the Workshops and Sick Lines, bringing out the lapses, the percentage of wagons passed locally, the safety items left un attended due to shortage of material or staff negligence etc. These reports get due attention of the Mechanical Heads as well as both Mechanical and safety Directorates of the Board for taking corrective action.

2.IRCA Head Quarter Office.

The head quarter Office has the following branches:-

1.

Interchange Section

Records pertaining to ownership of each MG wagon on Indian Railways, daily interchange of MG wagons at all inter-railway interchange points, daily wagon balances, interchange of wagons both MG and BG with Bangladesh and Pakistan Railways are maintained by IRCA. M.G wagon census results are processed and finalized by it. These works in respect of BG wagons have, however, transferred to Railway Board Computer Cell in the year 1969 and are done there. The following work is done in IRCA in this connection.

a.

Ownership Records

Railway wise records of each MG wagon owned by Indian Railways, type wise, are maintained in registers of IRCA

Whenever any new wagon is put on line or an existing wagon is condemned, the concerned Zonal Railway issues as addition or deletion advice and ownership records are updated accordingly. In order to ensure that no discrepancy creeps up in the ownership records, representatives of Chief Mechanical Engineers of all Zonal Railways are required to attend IRCA periodically for reconciliation. Thus IRCA is one Office where authentic and up to date information about railway wise, type wise MG stock is available and is supplied by it to the Board and Zonal Railways periodically.

b.

Wagon Census

MG wagon census is held every alternate year. Zonal railway feed the details of wagons enumerated over their Zone in their computers and send the floppy discs to Railway Board Computer Cell. Parallel master data about wagon ownership is maintained in Railway Computer cell also. The information received from Zonal Railways through floppy discs is matched with the master data available in the Railway Board Computer and analyzed. The following information is generated.

i	List of Railway wise, type wise wagons enumerated in their numerical order over a particular zone. Such lists are worked out of each Zonal Railway.
ii	List of Stock in existence but not enumerated anywhere.
iii	Stock not in existence but enumerated.
iv	Duplicate enumerations.

These statements are scrutinized with the records maintained in IRCA. Representatives of all Zonal Railways are called to IRCA office for reconciliation of census results and discrepancies mentioned above are sorted out.

List of Indian Railway wagons enumerated over Pakistan and Bangladesh Railways are also received directly by IRCA. IRCA also sends them the lists of their wagons enumerated in India. These are compared with our records. Discrepancies, if any, are sorted out in meetings with them.

After these reconciliation census results are finalized and issued by IRCA.

c.

Wagon Balance and Hire Charges.

At present Indian Railways own 7430=14283 MG wagons as on 31-12-2007. Daily Junction Returns are received in IRCA from all inter Railway interchange points. These contain all the particulars of each wagon interchanged at that point on that day viz., wagon number, type, owning railway, Loaded or empty.

Based on these DJRs IRCA staff work out the total number of wagons made over to, taken over from other adjoining railways by each railway each day. They also workout wagon balance for each railway each day. Wagon balance is the net difference between the ownership and the actual holding of wagons of a Zonal Railway, on a particular day. If a particular railway holds less number of wagons than it owns on a particular day, it is entitles to hire charges for balance of the wagons. Conversely the railway holding more wagons than its own is liable to pay hire charges for the excess number of wagons it holds.

Current rates of hire charges as per wagon day in terms of 4-wheelers are as under:

	For Non Rlys. Users	For Adjustment with IR	For Bangladesh Railway	For Pakistan Railway
BG	Rs.1038.8/-	Rs.387.1/-	Rs.665/-	Rs.1000
MG	Rs.464/-	Rs.204/-	Rs.290	----

Hire charges bills both in respect of BG and MG wagons are issued by IRCA. In respect of BG the Railway Board Computer Cell furnishes wagons balances to IRCA. In respect of MG they are worked out in IRCA Office itself.

Hire charges bills are sent to all the railways and to Traffic Accounts Office, New Delhi, who actually do the money adjustment between various Railways.

Interchange points of MG stations between Zonal Railways are in operation as per detail given below:

Sl.No.	INTERCHANGE POINT	RAILWAYS
1.	Khandwa	SC&WR
2.	Himmatnagar	WR&NWR
3.	Purnia	NF&EC
4.	Forbes Ganj	NF&NE

At present there are four BG interchange points and two MG interchange points with International Railways as per details given below :-

BG

RAILWAYS	NAME OF INTERCHANGE POINTS
IR & Pakistan Railway	Atari (N.Rly.)
IR & Bangladesh Railway	Ranaghat (E.Rly.)
	>Petrapole (E.Rly.)
	>Singhabad (N.F.Rly.)

MG

IR & Bangladesh Railway Radhikapur (N.F.Rly.)

Mahishasan (B.Rly.)

TARIFF SECTION

This section coordinates the functions of the Commercial Committee. The Commercial Committee consists of the Chief Commercial Managers of all Zonal Railways plus one representative of the non-government Railways (KRCL Rlys.) at present. All the proposals for new rules relating to booking of traffic, e.g., Classification, Packing/Weight Conditions, Reservation, Refund, etc. or any modification in the existing rules are, on being referred to IRCA by the Railway Board or by any Zonal Railway with the personal approval of the Chief Commercial Manager, is processed by the IRCA. The views of all Zonal Railways, Trade and Industry, Inspectors of Explosives and Chemicals, where necessary, are obtained and the whole case is put up before the Commercial Committee. A Sub-Committee consisting of Rates Managers of the Zonal Railways assists this Committee. All the proposals are examined in depth in the Rates Managers Sub-Committee meetings, which precedes the Commercial Committee meetings. The recommendations of the Rates Managers Sub-Committee are then considered by the Commercial Committee are sent to the Railway Board for their approval, but theses are recommendatory in nature and some times the Board does not accept them

The Commercial Committee also acts as Traffic Claims Arbitration for fixing inter- railway liability of compensation paid to the public.

The General Secretary, IRCA acts as Secretary of the Commercial Committee and IRCA Office as its Secretariat.

Issuing of correction slips to CT26 Pt.I Vol.I (Rule & Regulation) General Rule, CT 25 Pt.I Vol.II (concession) , CT25 Pt.I Vol.III (Parcel) etc. printing of these books as and when required by Railway Board and supply to all zonal Railways time to time.

Issuing of correction slip to GT 41 Pt.I Vol.I (General Rules) and GT 45 Pt.I Vol.II (Classification) printing of these book as and when required by Railway Board and supply to all zonal Railways time to time.

Printing of passenger fares, Parcel rates for descriptive goods (motor cars) and freight rates as announced during budget every year and distributing the same to all zonal Railways before 31st March to implement from 1st April.

Issuing of correction slip to Military tariff containing general rules etc. printing of these books as and when required by Railway Board and supply to all zonal Railways time to time.

To allot code initials of railway stations and private siding as and when requested by the zonal railway and revise the alphabetical book and Correction slip duly supplying the same to all zonal railways.

To supply Railway maps (Hindi & English) to all zonal Railways as per their requirement on receipt from Survey of India, Dehradun.

Compiling and printing of code initials of railways stations, sidings out-agencies

Issuing of correction slips to Red tariff containing rules of dangerous commodities etc. printing of this book as and when required by Railway Board supply to all zonal railways time to time.

Printing and distribution of point to point fare table Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains