Key Takeaways
- Indian Railways has announced the closure of the Special Railway Establishment for Strategic Technology and Holistic Advancement (SRESTHA), Lucknow as part of Restructuring of Indian Railway.
- Established in March 2016, the SRESTHA directorate, part of the Research Designs and Standards Organization (RDSO), was tasked with the role of taking up long-term railway research projects requiring technological advance
Recommendation of Principal Economic Adviser Sanjeev Sanyal on Railway Restructuring
- Merged 32 directorates of the RDSO and brought them under seven verticals — administration, infrastructure, rolling stock, traction and power supply, signal and telecommunication, resource and testing and traffic and psychology.
- The Geotech Engineering Directorate will be merged with the Track and Bridges and Structures Directorate.
- The establishment of Principal Executive Director, Defense Research, at the Defense Research and Development Organization, New Delhi, was detached from the RDSO
- The Railways proposed to create new posts in the rank of Executive Director, Design, to be posted at the Integral Coach Factory, Chennai, Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala and Modern Coach Factory, Rae Bareli, under the Railway Board’s Rolling Stock Directorate which is significance against the backdrop of the decision to roll out more than 200 Vande Bharat rakes.
- Winding up of organizations such as the Central Organization for Railway Electrification (CORE), the Central Organization for Modernization Of Workshops (COFMOW), the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) and the Indian Railways Organization for Alternative Fuel (closed on September 7, 2021).