With more than 12 lakh on roll manpower, Indian Railways is one of the largest public enterprises under single management in the world. Human resource management of such a large manpower, especially deployed in 24×7 operational activities is a challenge in itself.

In the last 10 years, it may be very well observed that on the one hand the overall manpower has a decreasing trend, the productivity of Indian Railways has improved in terms of freight loading and passengers carried. This has been possible due to improved productivity of manpower as a result of extensive training and skilling of manpower. Manpower planning in Indian Railways is a continuous process which involves review of manpower keeping in view upgradation of technology and change of work practices. By this exercise, we do intake of skilled staff reducing unskilled and semi-skilled categories.