Indian Railway Accounts Service
| Service Overview | |
|---|---|
| Abbreviation | IRAS |
| Formed | 1920s |
| Headquarters | Rail Bhavan New Delhi |
| Country | India |
| Training Academy | Indian Railway Institute of Financial Management (IRIFM), Secunderabad https://irifm.indianrailways.gov.in/ |
| Controlling Authority | Ministry of Railways, Government of India |
| Cadre Size | 800 |
| Service Chief | |
| Member Finance (L/A) | Ms. Usha Venugopal, IRAS. |
| Head of the Civil Services | |
| Cabinet Secretary | T. V. Somanathan, IAS |
The Indian Railway Accounts Service (IRAS; Bharatiya Rail Lekha Seva) is one of the Group A Central Civil Service of the Government of India. The civil servants under this Service are responsible for the Accounts and Finance Management of the Indian Railways. About 25–30 IRAS officers are recruited every year through Civil Services Examination conducted by Union Public Service Commission. Currently, the IRAS Cadre has a strength of about 800 officers.
In recent there has been a lot of deliberation for merger of cadre of different cadre of Railway services under a unified service IRMS ( Indian Railway Management Service)to even out cadre disparities and end perceived departmentalism. However, on ground nothing has changed except new recruits since CSE 2022 have been categorised as IRMS( Account) instead of traditional IRAS.