Northern Railway is celebrating the Vigilance Awareness Week 2020 from 27.10.2020 to 02.11.2020. As part of ongoing activities during Vigilance Awareness Week, Northern Railway organized a Vendor Meet at Baroda House, New Delhi on 29.10.2020. Due to challenges of Pandemic Covid-19 and the norms of social distancing, the Vendor Meet was held on Digital Platform. One of the main focus areas of the Vendor Meet was ‘Ease of Doing Business’ with Railways.
- This Vendor Meet was inaugurated by Shri Ashutosh Gangal, General Manager Northern Railway.
- While addressing the participants in the Vendor Meet, General Manager Northern Railway stated that this is a useful platform for interaction with our new and old vendors for strengthening the efforts in the Supply Chain System of Northern Railway.
- Indian Railways have been taking regular initiatives to ensure transparency in the Procurement System.
- The End to End Digitization in procurement processes has already been implemented by the Material Management Department of Indian Railways.
- The concern of Vendors towards their timely payments of supplies is largely addressed by introduction of Online Payment System.
- The difficulties those are being faced by the Industry in the recently introduced End-to-End digitization in payment system were also discussed and explained in this Vendor Meet.
- To boost the Railway procurement and cater to the growing demands of precision Engineering components, it is essential to enhance the vendor base for procurement and supply.
- Indian Railway is walking extra mile to reach to its new vendors, potential vendors and especially the MSME firms to increase competition and push import substitution.
- The Government of India has rationalized and implemented the changes in General Financial Rules to boost its Make in India policy.
- Recent changes in procurement rules were also explained to the participants from the Industry in the Vendor Meet.
- In the technical session, papers were presented on transforming Indian Railway Supply Chain through digitization, vendor approval system and benefits of payment through LC to the suppliers.
- Due to the challenge of Corona Pandemic Covid-19 and for the benefit of Industry, a Virtual Exhibition of critical items and sub-assemblies was also inaugurated by General Manager Northern Railway.
- He had also released an information brochure on the brief procurement process, having details of some of the short supply items.
There were more than 150 participants from Industry and Trade. To address the concern of Participants, a Question-Answer Session was also held and queries raised by the representatives of Industry were replied by the experts from Railways, RDSO, RITES,CRIS and SBI.
Additional Details:
Shri Ashutosh Gangal has taken over the charge of General Manager, Northern Railway on 28.10.2020. Prior to assuming the charge of General Manager Northern Railway, Shri Gangal was working as Additional Member, Planning, Railway Board.
- Shri Ashutosh Gangal, graduated from the Indian Railways Institute of Mechanical & Electrical Engineers, Jamalpur (IRIMEE) in 1985 with Gold Medal in section A & section B in Institution of Engineers India.
- He has over 35 years of rich and varied experience in Railways.
- His immediate past assignments include Principal Chief Mechanical Engineer at West Central Railway, Jabalpur, Senior Deputy General Manager at Central Railway, Mumbai & Divisional Railway Manager at Vadodara.
- His earlier assignments include a stint at Container Corporation of India Limited on deputation for about four years and as Chief Workshop Engineer in charge of Furnishing Division of Integral Coach Factory, Chennai.
- He has also worked in the Vehicle Dynamics Group & Research Directorates in RDSO, Lucknow.
- He has under gone training in reputed training institutes abroad in various management development programmes at International Anti Corruption Agency (IACA), Austria; Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA; SDA-Bocconi Business School Milan, Italy & Leekuon Yen School-University of Singapore.
- Apart from above training, he has also visited Germany, Israel & Sweden on official assignments.
- In Railway Board he worked as the coordinator for National Infrastructure Pipeline Projects for Railways.
- He also contributed to Sports Promotion activities as President of Sports Association in ICF, Central Railway & West Central Railway.
Source: Northern Railway-Press Release
