Ashok Kumar Verma, IRMS Officer, Appointed General Manager of Central Organisation for Railway Electrification

Ashok Kumar Verma has been appointed General Manager of the Central Organisation for Railway Electrification, moving from his previous position heading Northern Railway.

CORE is the specialised organisation within Indian Railways responsible for planning and executing railway electrification projects across the network, a mandate that has grown substantially in importance as Indian Railways has pursued near-complete electrification of its broad-gauge routes in recent years, making CORE's General Manager position central to the pace and quality of this ongoing infrastructure push.

Verma is an officer of the Indian Railway Management Service, the unified cadre structure introduced to consolidate Indian Railways' previously separate engineering and operational services, and his background heading Northern Railway, one of the network's largest zones, brings substantial senior operational leadership experience to CORE's specialised electrification mandate.

His move from a zonal General Manager role at Northern Railway to CORE's specialised electrification leadership represents a shift from broad, multi-functional zonal administration to a technically focused organisation with a narrower but critically important infrastructure mandate specific to traction power and electrification works.

CORE's ongoing electrification projects span new route electrification, traction substation construction, and overhead equipment installation across multiple zones simultaneously, requiring coordination between CORE's project execution teams and the individual zones where electrification work is underway.

Electrification has been positioned as central to Indian Railways' sustainability and operational efficiency goals, since electric traction offers both lower operating costs and reduced emissions compared to diesel traction, making CORE's execution pace directly relevant to the network's broader environmental and cost-efficiency targets.

The appointment was processed through the Railway Board's standard process for General Manager-level postings at specialised organisations including CORE.