Purchasing and its allied activities became complex as the traffic and train services increased in number and size. Purchase activity, which was clerical in nature in earlier days, had to respond to the needs of time become professional. The 1980s and 1990s saw more types of rolling stocks and improved maintenance practices. The railway network as measured by track km remained more or less the same, the increase in traffic and customer expectation put severe constraints on all the resources like track, rolling stock sheds, and workshops. Less time became available for maintenance. From the mid 1990s, safe running of trains emerged as an important issue and compared to previous decades, and more items became essential for safe operation of trains. All these issues put severe strain on railways purchasing system.