Indian Railway Stores Service

The Indian Railways Stores Service (IRSS) is a cadre of the Government of India. The officers of this service are the procurement and logistics specialists, contract managers on the IR, providers of logistics for the transportation of material from and within various railways as well as the planners and maintainers of the intelligent warehousing with automated storage and retrieval systems on the Indian Railways.

Recruitment & Job responsibility of IRSS

The officers of IRSS man the senior posts of stores department and also general administrative posts of Indian Railways. The members of this group A service are recruited through Engineering Services Examination conducted annually by the Union Public Service Commission. The basic qualification for appearing in this examination is a degree in Engineering and all the members belonging to this service are Engineers. Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT) defines it as a Technical Service. The total sanctioned strength of cadre is 656.IRSS cadre not only caters to stores departments but contribute significantly to general administration of Indian Railways in Particular and Government of India in General. The Various Ex-Cadre posts held by officers of service are, General Manager, Divisional Railway Manager, Additional Divisional Railway Manager, Chairman Railway Recruitment Board. Many officers are also working on Deputation to Government Of India.


Indian Railway Stores Service (IRSS) is one of the nine organized service of Indian Railways. The IRSS cadre is responsible for forecasting, planning, procurement logistic support & management, warehousing of very expensive and sophisticated assets meant for the national lifeline i.e Indian Railways. It is also responsible for giving material support to production of coaches, locomotives and other rolling stock. This service is also responsible for mopping up scrap scattered all over Indian Railways, and to sell it through tender/public auction. The important function of vendor approval /development and registration of firms is also one of the main functions of IRSS.

In the changing scenario, when the whole world in all spheres is undergoing major transformation, the need is to reorganize and re-engineer the IRSS to achieve objectives of modern materials management in one of the largest rail transportation systems in the world. It is the IRSS who have to conceive, implement and run the totally new stores management order.