Indian Railways is a publicly-owned company controlled by the Government of India, via the Ministry of Railways. The ministry is currently headed by Lalu Prasad Yadav, the Union Minister for Railways and assisted by two junior Ministers of State for Railways, R. Velu and Naranbhai J. Rathwa. Reporting to them is the Railway Board, which has six members and a chairman.

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Each of the sixteen zones is headed by a General Manager (GM) who reports directly to the Railway Board. The zones are further divided into divisions under the control of Divisional Railway Managers (DRM). The divisional officers of engineering, mechanical, electrical,signal & telecommunication , accounts, personnel,opearating, commercial and safety branches report to the respective Divisional Manager and are in charge of operation and maintenance of assets . Further down the hierarchy tree are the Station Masters who control individual stations and the train movement through the track territory under their stations' administration.

Apart from these zones, a number of Public Sector Undertakings (PSU) are under the administrative control of the ministry of railways. Some of these PSU's are:

For administrative purposes, Indian Railways is divided into sixteen zones .

† Konkan Railway (KR) is constituted as a separately incorporated railway, with its headquarters at Belapur CBD (Navi Mumbai), although it still comes under the control of the Railway Ministry and the Railway Board.

The Calcutta Metro is owned and operated by Indian Railways, but is not a part any of the zones. It is administratively considered to have the status of a zonal railway.

Each zonal railway is made up of a certain number of divisions, each having a divisional headquarters. There are a total of sixty-seven divisions.

Zonal Railway Divisions

Northern Railway	Delhi, Ambala , Firozpur, Lucknow, Moradabad
North Eastern Railway	Izzatnagar, Lucknow , Varanasi
Northeast Frontier Railway	Alipurduar, Katihar, Lumding, Rangia,Tinsukia
Eastern Railway	Sealdah, Asansol , Malda
South Eastern Railway	Adra, Chakradharpur, Kharagpur, Ranchi
South Central Railway	Secunderabad, Hyderabad, Guntkal , Guntur, Nanded, Vijayawada
Southern Railway	Chennai, Madurai, Palghat, Tiruchchirapalli, Trivandrum
Central Railway	Mumbai, Bhusawal, Nagpur, Pune, Solapur
Western Railway	Mumbai, Baroda, Ratlam, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Bhavnagar
South Western Railway	Hubli, Bangalore, Mysore
North Western Railway	Jaipur, Ajmer, Bikaner, Jodhpur
West Central Railway	Jabalpur, Bhopal, Kota
North Central Railway	Allahabad ,Agra , Jhansi
South East Central Railway	Bilaspur , Bilaspur, Bilaspur
East Coast Railway	Khurda Road, Sambalpur, Waltair
East Central Railway	Danapur, Dhanbad, Mughalsarai, Samastipur, Sonpur

Apart from these zones, a number of Public Sector Undertakings (PSU) are under the administrative control of the ministry of railways. Some of these PSU's are:

Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation
Konkan Railway Corporation
Indian Railway Finance Corporation
Centre for Railway Information System
Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation
Railtel Corporation of India – Telecommunication Networks
RITES Ltd. – Consulting Division of Indian Railways
IRCON International Ltd. – Construction Division