Before this appointment, Mr. Subba Rao was serving as the General Manager of the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai. He is an officer of the 1987 batch of the Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineering (IRSME).
Mr. Rao has held several key leadership roles across various zonal railways and production units. These include Additional General Manager and Principal Chief Mechanical Engineer of South Western Railway in Hubballi, Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) of Salem division in Southern Railway, Chief Mechanical Engineer (Planning) at South Central Railway in Secunderabad, Chief Workshop Manager at the Coaching Workshop in Mysuru (SWR), and Chief Workshop Engineer at the Rail Wheel Factory in Bengaluru.
He is recognized for his innovative approach and operational excellence. Notably, as Chief Workshop Engineer at the Rail Wheel Factory, Bengaluru, he led the team to achieve a record production of 200,000 wheels in fiscal year 2011-12. During his tenure as GM at ICF, the factory won multiple national awards including the Best Production Unit Shield of Indian Railways, the Change Maker Award, the CII National Award, the Star Performer Award, and the National Energy Conservation Award for Innovation.
Mr. Subba Rao holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a postgraduate degree in Public Policy and Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru. He has completed advanced executive training such as the Senior Managers’ Programme in Paris and Johannesburg. Additionally, he contributed to validating the EMU Cast Wheels Design at the Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) in the USA.
He is a second-generation railway officer; his father, U. Narasimha Rao, retired as Chief Planning and Design Engineer from South Central Railway.
