INDIAN RAILWAY TRAFFIC SERVICE (IRTS)

The Indian Railway Traffic Service was formed in the year …………….. and the cadre controlling authority of Ministry of Railways with a cadre size of 750 posts. The source of recruitment (in percentage) through direct recruitment 50% and by promotion 50% with no lateral entries.

Service hierarchy:

Grade	Pay scales	Designation in field (commercial)	Designation in field (operational)	Any other designation
Junior time scale	8000-13500	Assistant commercial manager	Assistant operational manager
Selection time scale sr. scale	10000-15200	Divisional commercial manger	Divisional operational manager
Junior administrative grade	12000-16500	Sr. divisional commercial manager	Sr. divisional operational manager
Selection grade	14300-18300	Sr. divisional commercial manager	Sr. divisional operational manager
Senior administrative grade	18400-500-22400	Chief commercial manger	Chief operational manager	Executive director
Higher administrative grade	22400-525-24500			Additional member
	26000 (fixed)			Member (traffic)

Brief write up on the service outlining the main functions etc. including areas where interaction and coordination with other services is essential:

Functions of operating department

Railway operation encompasses all the activities connected with the running of a railway. However, operating department in particular has its role in producing a service called transportation. In this activity, operating department harnesses the efforts of all the departments of the railways and optimise usage of operational assets viz., track, signals fixed installations and rolling stock. Broadly the functions can be categorised as under:

Planning and transport service: This involves both long term as well as short term planning. A lot of spadework has to be done to run trains on day-to-day basis. Passenger trains are planned to be run and detailed timetable issued once in six months. Arrangements of rolling stock and locomotives are made to meet the expected demand. Similarly, facilities of wagons have to be made available for the goods traffic. Demands for the wagons for different commodities vary during different seasons of the year. Railways have to plan to meet these fluctuations in demand.

Running of trains and continuous watch: Running of trains would involve ordering of trains, booking of crew, watching that the conditions are safe for it to run and arranging various requirements on the run. Passenger trains run on a predetermined schedule, fluctuations in the traffic do not generally influence their running. On the other hand, except for a few, scheduled goods trains, these trains run as and when there is adequate load. A goods train generally leaves when there are a number of wagons to be cleared for a particular destination/yard in the same fashion as a village tonga leaves for the town when it is full. Exceptions in both cases exist, though rare.

Safety: Safety is the prime attribute of any transport system. No user would like to use a transport system which does not provide a reasonable amount of safety to the limb, life and property of the user. Safety is, therefore, an integral part of operations and it is the responsibility of operating department to ensure that trains are operated in a safe manner. This requires rigid observance of rules and procedures of safe train operation.

Economy and efficiency: While maintenance departments are responsible for making the assets available to the operating department in proper fetle, it is the responsibility of the latter to make most optimum utilization thereof. Operating department is, therefore, responsible for the productivity of the system. This is measured in terms of operating indices like tonne kilometers and passenger kilometers. The government officials such as CRS, DSP, SP, SRP, Collector, District Magistrate, Officer-in-charge of the police station, should be given every facility to proceed to the site of the accident by ART, wherever practiceable, but such trains should not be detained for this purpose.
Functions of the commercial department

The commercial department is responsible for the sale of transportation provided by a railway, for creating and developing traffic, for securing and maintaining friendly relations with the traveling and trading public and for cultivating good public relations generally. The fixing of rates, fares and other charges and the correct collection, accountal and remittance of traffic receipts are also among its functions.

Organisation of the commercial department

1. At railway board level – Member Traffic, Railway Board, is in charge of commercial as well as operating department at the Board’s level. There is a commercial directorate under him headed by Addl. Member (Commercial). He is assisted by executive directors and directors/joint directors, looking after portfolios of freight rates, coaching rates, reservation catering, marketing, claims and refunds and research. They are further assisted by deputy directors etc.

2. At zonal level – Under the General Managers of each zone, there is one additional general manager. Additional general manager looks after the commercial department in matters delegated to him by the GM. There are usually three heads of departments in commercial department, chief commercial manager (CCM), chief claims officer (CCO), and chief marketing & sales manager (CMSM). CCM is an overall in-charge and CCO & CMSM working under him. CCM is usually in the same grade as the AGM. The CCM deals with all general matters in commercial including rates, catering and refunds. He is assisted by commercial manager (general) / Dy. CCM (Rules)\

The General branch looks after matters such as wharfage and demurrage, handling contracts, passenger amenities at stations, ticket checking, passenger complaints, commercial publicly, commercial establishment, identifying and supply of tickets, accounts and audit objections, commercial stores etc.

The rates branch deals with implementation of rating policies enunciated by the Board, issue of various rate circulars, time-tables to all stations of the railways, siding agreements, quoting of special rates for passengers as well as freight traffic, opening/closing of stations, refund of overcharges etc. The catering branch look after all aspects relating to departmental and contract in the zone.

The claims organisation under CCO has two wings viz. – claims settlement wing and claims prevention wing. CCO is assisted by a Dy. CCO and a Dy. SCM (CP) respectively in these two branches. The Dy. CCO has senior commercial officer (claims) and number of assistant officers whose number varies according to the workload on each railway. There is also a legal cell to render legal advice in settlement of claims as well as for processing claim cases taken by the claimanants to Railway claims tribunals, SCM (CP) is similarly assisted by ACM (PP) and number of claims prevention inspectors.

With a view to making the traffic commercial department, more customer oriented and to segregate the passenger and freight and functions, the railway board have decided to effect changes in the designations of some of the posts in the commercial department as detailed below:

	Existing designation	Changed designation
1.	Chief Comml. Manager (General)	Chief Comml. Manager (Passenger service)
2.	Chief Comml. Manager (CR)	Chief Comml. Manager (Passenger marketing)
3.	Chief marketing & sales Manager (CMSM)	Chief Comml. Manager (Freight marketing)
4.	Chief rates manager -	Chief Comml. Manager (Freight Services)
5.	Chief Catering Services Manager	Chief Comml. Manager (Catering)

(Ref. Rly. Bd’s letter No.97/E(O)II/15/1 dt.5/8/98)
The chief public relations officer is another officer who assists the commercial department. He is in SAG/JAG, and looks after the matters such as organizing proper publicity about railways, issuing press notes, giving advertisements to news papers, conducting press parties to various important junctions, organizing press conferences etc. on special occasions. He is assisted by a senior public relations officer. They are further assisted by two APROs. There is also a post of APRO in all important state capitals falling in a zone, there he works under the Sr. DCM and CPRO both. Normally CPRO reports directly to AGM & GM of a zone.

At Divisional Level: Divisional railway manager (DRM) is the head of the division. He is in senior administrative grade. The DRM is assisted by one or more additional divisional railway managers (ADMRs) and several branch officers. The head of commercial branch is Sr. Divisional commercial manager in JA Grade or Divisional Commercial manager is senior scale depending on size of the division. He is assisted by one or more DCMs & Assistant commercial manager respectively. The primary function of these officers is implement all policies and directions issued by the head office and to ensure smooth day-to-day commercial working at the stations on a division. The Sr. DCM/DCM is responsible for all executive aspects of commercial working as well as personnel matters such as transfers, promotions and discipline of commercial staff of a division.

In addition to these officers, there are some area officers in each division varying from senior administrative grade to assistant scale depending upon size and importance of the area being looked after. They are also delegated certain powers to handle day-to-day commercial matters such as waiver of wharfage demurrage, releasing reservation quotas, public relations etc., in addition to some operating functions on certain divisions.

At station level: Station is the main centre where the commercial business is actually transacted. They can be called the retail outlets for sale of our product namely transport. There are over 700 stations spread all over Indian railways. The nature of traffic handled at each station differs and these stations are listed alphabetically in the alphabetical list of railway stations published by IRCA.
Some important and larger stations are headed by a Station Manager (SM) Gazetted Gr. B. At several stations. At several stations, however, they are designated as Station Superintendent (SS). At bigger stations, depending on the workload separate

Commercial staff is provided to look after the commercial work. They are generally known by a generic name of commercial clerks and may be working as booking clerks, parcel clerks, goods clerks, ticket collectors, inquiry & reservation clerks, catering managers, etc. At still bigger stations, there are all these categories of commercial staff headed by supervisory staff for each function. The designations of these supervisory staff are such as Chief reservation inspector, catering inspector, chief parcel clerk, chief booking clerk, chief goods clerk etc. depending on his function.

Stations being the hub of commercial activity they are provided with various facilities to handle the traffic dealt with at the station. These facilities may include an adequate number of booking windows for passengers, a separate parcel office with separate facilities for booking, delivery and stocking of parcels, a separate goods office with covered shed, platforms for loading/uploading, special sidings for dealing with oil traffic and other bulk traffic such as coal, timber, minerals etc. crane facilities, motor ramps, plots for storage of loose material like charcoals etc. in addition to canteen and other facilities. At important stations there will also be separate reservation and inquiry officers, cloak rooms and catering establishments. The quantum and standard of these facilities differ from station based on its commercial land requirements