For Official Use Only

³ÖÖ¸üŸÖ ÃÖ¸ü�úÖ¸ü Government of India ¸êü»Ö ´ÖÓ¡ÖÖ»ÖµÖ Ministry of Railways

(¸êü»Ö¾Öê ²ÖÖê›Ôü Railway Board )

MINUTES

Of

64th Periodical Conference of the Controllers of Stores of

All Indian Railways &

Production Units

with

Railway Board

Held at: NWR, Jaipur

16th & 17th February, 2007

Present: Railway Board:

AM (RS) Shri R. Ramesh

EDRS(P) Shri Harish Gulati

EDRS(S) Shri Ramesh Chandra

EDRS(G) Shri A. K. Goel

EDRS(C) Shri Gajanand Prasad

EDV(S) Shri Rakesh Aron

Railways/PUs:

Controller of Stores/C.R. Shri Arvind Kishore

Chief Materials Manager/E.R. Shri I. S. Upadhyay

Controller of Stores/N.R. Shri M. P. Juneja

Controller of Stores/N.E.R. Shri Kali Shankar

Controller of Stores/N.F.R. Shri P. K. Banerjee

Chief Materials Manager/S.R. Shri Surendra Singh

Controller of Stores/S.C.R. Shri Amithaba Datta

Chief Materials Manager/S.E.R Shri S. P. Verma

Chief Materials Manager/W.R. Shri H. R. Meena

Chief Materials Manager/E.C.R. Shri K. Chaudhary

Controller of Stores/E.Co.R. Shri Umesh Singh

Controller of Stores/N.C.R. Shri V. P. Pathak

Controller of Stores/N.W.R. Shri M. K. Surana

Controller of Stores/S.E.C.R. Shri B. K. Sinha

Controller of Stores/S.W.R. Shri V. K. P. Meshram

Controller of Stores/W.C.R. Shri V. P. Raheja

Controller of Stores/C.L.W. Shri Mangat Rai

Controller of Stores/D.L.W. Shri P. D. Gupta

Controller of Stores/D.L.M.W. Shri Dayal Arya

Controller of Stores/I.C.F. Shri C. Ilangovan

Controller of Stores/R.C.F. Shri Moti Lal

Controller of Stores/R.W.F. Shri K. Sukumar

Controller of Stores/COFMOW Shri Vijay Shanker

Controller of Stores/CORE Shri A. K. Agrawal

Controller of Stores/K.R.C.L. Shri R. K. Aherwar

Controller of Stores/M.R.V.C. Shri S. K. Prasad

Controller of Stores/Metro Shri Hira Lal

Controller of Stores/NFR (Con) Shri P. Barua

ED/Stores/RDSO Shri Rajeev Saxena

Chief Technical Examiner/CVC Shri V. Ramachandran

GM-Project-V, CRIS Shri V. K. Srivastava

Page 1 of 6 pages

Minutes of the 64th Periodical Conference of Controllers of Stores of All Indian Railways and Production Units with Railway Board held on 16th & 17th February, 2007 at North Western Railway, Jaipur. 1 Address by AM(RS): 1.1 AM(RS) welcomed all officers for the 64th Periodical Conference of Controller of Stores. Key Materials Management areas such as revenue generation through disposal of scrap, MMIS, E-procurement, depot modernization, manpower planning, delegation of power, procurement policy were slated for discussion. 1.2 AM(RS) complimented SCR for achieving more than 98% availability of stock items and safety items. All Railways were advised to achieve cent percent availability of items. 1.3 AM(RS) congratulated NWR, CR, NR & NFR for exceeding their proportionate targets for revenue generation through disposal of scrap. SWR, ECR, WCR and ECoR were advised to draw action plan to achieve their targets as these Railways were lagging behind their proportionate target by a huge percentage. 1.4 COSs were advised to switch over to electronic weighing scales for accurate weighment of non-ferrous returned stores/scrap as recently advised by Railway Board. 1.5 COSs were advised to implement MMIS developed by Central Railway in their units at the earliest. 1.6 CRIS was advised to begin rolling out the e-procurement application for all the 13 selected units immediately, jointly with NR. 1.7 SR, ICF, CR, WR, ER, SER and NR were advised to send their proposals for conducting few more trials on e-auction. 1.8 COSs were advised to upgrade depot infrastructure and to introduce vertical storage system and palletisation. 1.9 COSs were advised to ensure that no indents for printing of card tickets are kept pending for more than 30 days. 1.10 RDSO was advised to put up the system/procedure of approval of sources on their website. 2 Address by GM/NWR: 2.1 GM/NWR welcomed all the officers for the 64th Periodical Conference of COSs. He stated that efficiency in freight & passenger operation has to go upwards drastically as volume of freight traffic and its lead is growing steadily. This will need extensive and optimum utilization of assets which in turn will require unfailing support from materials management department

Page 2 of 6 pages

so as to ensure uninterrupted flow of right quantity of right quality material for maintenance of assets at fair prices.

He further stated that:

• Board has laid down target for reduction in assets failure as 20% every year. Normally 10% failures are on account of materials which need to be tackled by drawing proper specifications of items needed coupled with proper inspection and usage of materials.

• There is wide time gap from generation of indent to placement of supply orders necessitating quantity assessment/review at the time of finalization of tenders in all tenders.

• Source Approval mechanism including Part I and Part II mechanism, needs to be reviewed drastically since so called open tenders get effectively reduced into limited tenders.

• Further effective expenditure control is needed at all levels to ensure proper utilization of money being spent.

• Board has permitted placement of orders beyond 15% of tendered quantities on Part II approved sources under certain conditions. However, distribution of quantities among Part I and Part II sources needs to be reviewed in the present circumstances.

• Cartel formation definition needs clarification.

• Preferences should be given to public sector if they have to survive.

• Procurement price of material being sold off as scrap needs to be linked.

• Physical delivery of scrap needs to be checked.

• Workshop having surplus capacity can be asked to take up inhouse manufacture of items like ERCs.

3 Address by CTE/CVC: It was advised to COSs that:

• CVC is reviewing its letter dated 3rd Oct 2006.

• CVC is concerned about transparency, equity and fair treatment of all the tenderers in the process.

• CVC’s guidelines should be followed generally. However, depending upon merit of the case, decisions may be taken in deviation of CVC’s

Page 3 of 6 pages

guidelines by recording proper, justified and adequate reasons and keeping in view the basics of cannons of financial propriety.

4 Address by EDV(S): Railways were advised:

• To avoid splitting of non-stock demands and excess procurement of RC items.

• To define PVC clause including PVC indices properly in the contracts.

• To put their registration procedures, forms for registration and trade groups on their websites.

• To provide online status of application of registration to firms on website.

• To provide updated vendor’s database on their websites.

• To provide details of tenders against which the purchase orders has been issued on their website.

• To provide payment details to firms electronically. 5 Discussion on Agenda Items: 5.1 Material Availability & Inventory: 5.1.1 All Railways were advised:

• To ensure cent percent availability of stock items.

• To achieve the targets for inventory TOR as fixed in RE 2006-07. 5.1.2 COSs were advised that:

• All instructions, proformas, statistics pertaining to RS(G) and RS(IC) branches are being uploaded on stores web page of Board’s Railnet site i.e. http://10.1.2.21/ or http://10.1.10.21/stores/.

• Various statements/information being sent to RS(G) and RS(IC) Branches of Stores Directorate i.e. PCDO to MM, information related to availability of stock items & safety items, statement pertaining to balances and issues, inactive surplus etc. may be sent by e-mail on drsic@rb.railnet.gov.in also.

5.1.3 Railways were advised to integrate inventory review function in their purchase action by providing financial year-wise delivery schedule for high

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value items which is likely to result in zero deferments of delivery and NIL forced issue in the last quarter of financial year. 5.2 Centralised / Decentralised Purchase:

As a lot of problems are being faced by Railways in procurement of signaling cables, quad cables owing to frequent cartel formation by approved vendors. So, it was decided to process for one time procurement of these items by Board for a period of two years. 5.3 Revenue generation through Scrap Management: 5.3.1 All Railways were advised:

• Not only to achieve their targets for disposal of scrap but to exceed them.

• That targets for revenue generation through disposal of scrap for the year 2007-08 will be approximately Rs. 2000 crores.

• To send their proposals at the earliest for conducting more trials for e-auction.

• To switch over to electronic weighing scales for accountal of non-ferrous returned stores and disposal of non-ferrous scrap in compliance of the recent directives issued by Railway Board.

It was decided to process for:

• Enhancement in value limits for payment of balance sale value of sold lots.

• Enhancement in size of the scrap lot.

• Revision of EMD and SD in sale tenders.

It was suggested by Railways to introduce New Shield for revenue generation through disposal of scrap and to issue guidelines for utilization of 1% of earnings from sale every year to set up infrastructure for web-portal for e-auction, sharing of information, IT support and procurement of digital cameras.

5.3.2 Participation of unscrupulous persons / firms in public auction:

It was advised to Railways that entry of unscrupulous persons in public auction should be barred & further necessary actions may be taken with the help of RPF & local Police. However incase the person is representing a firm, then procedure of barring the firm should also be taken up.

Page 5 of 6 pages

5.4 System Improvement:

All Railways were advised to speed up the process for ISO-9001 certification of their COS Office and all stores depots at the earliest, preferably latest by December 2007. 5.5 Manpower planning:

It was decided to follow up of the sanction of gazetted posts on revenue account due to creation of new asset or enhancement of capacity such as sanction of two Jr. Scale posts as asked by SCR for newly formed stores depots at Kazipet and Maula-ali.

It was also decided to process for:

• Training institutes for training of Gr.’C’ staff for stores department in each region.

• Classification of depot staff as essential category staff.

• Classification of some of the depot staff related to safety as safety category staff.

• Induction of purchase assistants as Diploma/Degree holder in essential category.

• One time empowerment of GMs for selective recruitment of staff for purchase office with qualification of graduate/diploma.

5.6 Provision of infrastructure and M&P:

• Depot Modernisation: As already advised during the Review Meeting held on 05-01-2007, COSs were again advised to send their proposals for upgradation of infrastructure of all depots which shall include vertical storage and material handling systems, moving cabinet storage system, multi utility vehicles, trucks, fork lifters etc. The emphasis of upgradation should be on enhancement in productivity and output of manpower.

• It was decided to process for mandatory consultation with stores department with regard to provision of adequate infrastructure for feeding up of the newly set up maintenance unit and workshop / locoshed with enhanced capacity.

• As workshops have to be supported by providing adequate raw materials/spares/items by attached stores depots, so, depot modernization of depots attached with workshops covered under workshop modernization programme has to be carried out simultaneously with their workshops. For this, adequate money

Page 6 of 6 pages

needs to be provided in the workshop modernization programme itself.

5.7 MMIS:

Railways were advised:

• To speed up the implementation of online MMIS in their units so as to reap all benefits of computerisation.

• That additional allocations for MMIS has been made in RE-2006-07:

• To send in their proposals immediately for 2007-08, if not sent already.

5.8 E- Procurement:

All Railways were advised to nominate a stores officer and an officer each from engineering and finance department to act as nodal officer for implementation of e-procurement on their unit. The same should be advised to CRIS immediately.

5.9 Schedule of Powers:

It was advised to COSs that enhancement in schedule of powers is under consideration at Board level. 5.10 Vendor Dev./Registration:

Prior to introduction of new specification, RDSO should develop adequate number of sources to ensure continuity of supplies for such items. Till the time, adequate number of sources are yet to be developed, old specification of the item should continue. 5.11 Performance of Ticket Printing Presses:

Railways were advised to take assistance of other railways in the event of their inability to comply with intents for card ticket printing within one month.