Srinagar, 10 January (H.S.): Bringing laurels to Jammu & Kashmir, Poonardeep Singh, a young and dynamic officer of the Indian Railways, has been conferred with the prestigious ATTI Vashisht Rail Seva Puraskar–2025 for his exceptional contributions to indigenous manufacturing, innovation, and cost efficiency in rolling stock production.

The award was presented at a ceremonial function held in New Delhi on January 9, 2025, recognising his outstanding professional excellence, leadership, and technological interventions that have significantly benefitted Indian Railways.

Son of Harvinder Singh and Harvinder Kour, Poonardeep is a resident of Ashok Nagar, Satwari, Jammu. He cracked the highly competitive Indian Engineering Services (IES) examination through UPSC in 2019 and was subsequently allocated to the Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineers (IRSME).

Currently posted as Works Manager at the Integral Coach Factory (ICF), Chennai, he has played a pivotal role in advancing indigenous manufacturing under the ‘Make in India’ initiative. Notably, he successfully fabricated and machined Vande Bharat train bogies in-house, enabling large-scale import substitution and resulting in substantial cost savings for the Railways.

During his tenure, he developed innovative fixtures for LACCN roof production, created a rolling stock traceability application, and converted conventional under-frame fixtures into universal systems. He also introduced advanced hydraulic sheet-stretching machines, significantly enhancing production efficiency and output quality.

Owing to his dedicated efforts, both production capacity and quality standards improved considerably, leading to savings of several crores of rupees for Indian Railways.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Krishan Kumar