Latest tech ushered in for Railways

Feb 26, 2011 - S. RONENDRA SINGH |

Financial Chronicle

New Delhi

Tags:

Railway Budget

Railway minister Mamata Banerjee provided the much needed technology edge to the world’s fourth largest railways network that has its beginnings in pre-British India.
Ms Banerjee announced a slew of technology measures to beef up the railway network as part of her Budget proposals.

She announced plans to open a Centre of Excellence in software at Darjeeling to be controlled by Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS). “A number of measures will be taken to usher in latest technology,” she said.
Based on outcome of a pilot project, consumers can access reliable information on train running thanks to latest technology induction in offing. The knowhow for this, christened as satellite imaging for rail navigation (SIMRAN), has jointly been developed by IIT-Kanpur and research, design and standards organisation (RDSO).
The IT services body, National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), and analysts in the information technology (IT) sector hailed the technology driven initiatives announced by Ms Banerjee.
“Indian Railways has always been first adopters of technologies for the benefit of country’s citizens. IT would play a big role in coming future also as it is one of the largest rail networks in world. Technologies would also lead to better management of cumbersome works and more safety for passengers and secure cargo movement,” Nasscom president Som Mittal told the Financial Chronicle.
Ms Banerjee also announced e-ticketing portal to be launched shortly by CRIS. Booking of tickets through this portal will be cheaper with a charge of `10 for AC classes and `5 for others.
She has also talked about e-procurement and e-auction to ensure transparency and economy, issuing paperless railway receipts, to deploy global positioning system-based “fog safe” device, extend Web-based system for allotment of iron ore rakes to coal traffic, all-India security help-line on a single number and provision of Internet access on Howrah-Rajdhani Express as a pilot project.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/59758" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-c445416da91f9f552d0fa52d5c5fef88" value="form-c445416da91f9f552d0fa52d5c5fef88" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="89952211" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>