OREANDA-NEWS. March 12, 2012. Shri Keshav Chandra has taken over as new Member Mechanical, Railway Board and ex-officio Secretary to Government of India.. Prior to this new posting, he served as General Manager, Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR), Guwahati. However, he will continue to hold the post of GM, NFR Railway in addition to his present post until further orders.

 An officer of the 1975 batch of Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineers (IRSME), Shri Chandra held various key positions on different Zonal Railways. Shri Chandra worked as Additional General Manager in two of the biggest Railways viz East Central Railway (Hajipur) and Northern Railway (New Delhi).

 During his career, he worked as Divisional Railway Manager, Ambala Division of Northern Railway. He has also worked as Executive Director, RDSO, the research arm of Indian Railways, and headed both the Testing and Quality Assurance Directorates. He is credited with first set of successful trials for DMRC rakes and their subsequent clearance and helping introduce the concept of technical Quality Audit on Indian Railways. He also worked as Railway Advisor for Europe (Based in Berlin) and is well versed with the latest railway technologies and is credited with having brought several new technologies closer to home.

 Shri Keshav Chandra who is a product of La Martiniere College, Lucknow graduated from IRIMEE, Jamalpur. He is known for maintaining excellent man-management relations. He has been associated with the voluntary Blood Donation Movement in the country. Having donated blood some 80 times since 1976, Shri Chandra has also written a paper, titled ‘Donate Once In A Life Time’ (DOIALT) scheme which advocates that f every healthy Indian was to donate blood only once in a lifetime, the shortage of safe blood in the country would be wiped out. He has been a keen sportsman and has authored a book “One track Mind’ released by Bishen Singh Bedi in 2002.