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Directorate of Purchase &
Stores, under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Government of India
is the centralized agency responsible for the materials management
function of number of Research & Development centers like Bhabha
Atomic Research Center (BARC), Mumbai, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic
Research (IGCAR), Kalpakkam, Centre for Advanced Technology (CAT), Indore,
Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre (VECC), Kolkata and industrial set-ups
such as Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC, Hyderabad, Board of Radiation and
Isotope Technology (BRIT), Mumbai, Heavy Water Plants at different
locations at Manuguru, Kota, Talcher, Tuticorin and Barada working under
the aegis of DAE. The department employing over 1000 staff members with
its headquarters at Mumbai is headed by Director (P&S) who is
responsible for all policy matters and establishing all procedural
guidelines and overseeing the implementation of the same. In view of the
diverse geographical locations all over the country of the constituent
units of DAE, full fledged Regional Units have been set up at Chennai,
Hyderabad and Indore and function under a Regional Director (P&S) who,
in turn, is responsible to Director (P&S). To achieve his objective of
making available the various stores to the different user departments,
Director is assisted by a team of officers comprising Deputy Directors,
Purchase Officers & Assistant Purchase Officers and other staff
members entrusted with the tendering, contracting and other affiliated
purchase functions. To complement the purchase activities, there is a
Stores wing attached to each of the Research & Development center and
industrial units located in different parts of the country headed by
Stores Officer/Assistant Stores Officer and parallel work force under them
responsible for the stores management function such as receipt of
material, accounting, issue to the users, storage and stock verification,
etc. Items of common, use are procured in bulk after inviting competitive
bids and stored in the form of common stock items. This apart, the Stores
wing also handles disposal of items, which have become surplus, obsolete
and unserviceable by issue of Public Tenders. A large quantity of scrap
material, which is generated from time to time during fabrication of
certain items in-house or by contractors where the raw material has been
supplied by the Department is also disposed off by the Stores wing on
regular basis, as per the laid down procedure and guidelines.
The purchase and stores units at headquarters are commonly referred to as the Central Purchase Unit
(CPU) and Central Stores Unit (CSU) respectively. For administrative
management of the large work force and to cater to the payments to be made
to various vendors against supplies made, there are independent
administration and accounts wings at headquarters referred to as Central
Administration Unit and Central Accounts Unit. Similarly, the regional
units also have associate finance and independent paying authority
stationed at places from where the contracts for supplies emanate.
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