Directorate of Purchase & Stores, under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Government of India is the centralized agency responsible for materials management functions of Research & Development centres like Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC), Mumbai, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Kalpakkam, Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (RRCAT), 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), Navi Mumbai, Heavy Water Plants at different locations, i.e. Manuguru, Kota, Talcher, Tuticorin and Baroda under DAE.

The Directorate employing over 1000 staff members with its headquarters at Mumbai is headed by Director 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 of the constituent units of DAE all over the country, full fledged Regional Units have been set up at Chennai, Hyderabad and Indore which functions under Regional Director (P&S) who, in turn, are reporting to Director.

To achieve the objective of making available various stores and equipments to different user departments, Director is assisted by a team of officers comprising Joint Director, 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 centres 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 stores management functions such as receipt of material, accounting, issue to the users, storage, 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 or unserviceable, by issue of Public Tenders. A large quantity of scrap materials, which are generated from time to time during fabrication of certain items in-house or by contractors where raw materials are supplied by the Department are 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.