 "Ratan Tata to head Indian Railways' innovation committee: Suresh Prabhu")
Minister of Railways, Suresh Prabhu, in the Railway Budget 2016-17, announced plans to set up a dedicated, cross functional team called Special Unit for Transportation Research and Analytics (Sutra) for carrying out detailed analytics leading to optimised investment decisions and operations. The team would comprise professional analysts and best-in-class decision support systems and optimisation engines. Railway Minister said, “Data backed decision making is a hallmark of great institutions. Though Indian Railway, as an organisation, collects over 100 Terabytes of data every year, yet it is hardly analysed to gain business insights.”
The Ministry has set aside a sum of Rs 50 crore for providing innovation grants to employees, start-ups and growth oriented small businesses to support internal and external innovation. The initiative would be administered by an Innovation Committee comprising reputed investors, representatives from National Academy of Indian Railways, Railway Board and ‘Kayakalp’ headed by Ratan Tata. A program management structure will be put in place to manage this initiative.
On an annual basis, the Ministry seeks to find out solutions to Indian Railway’s most critical problems through an Innovation Challenge. For this year, the areas for the annual challenge are accessibility to trains from low level platforms; increasing capacity of coaches; and digital capabilities at stations.
Railway Minister added, “There has been a long felt need for developing a test track for expeditious testing of prototypes under varying test conditions as against the prevalent practice of testing on the Railway network, which leads to traffic delays, besides inability to simulate all test conditions. Indian Railways will develop a Test Track which will go a long way in enhancing the R&D capability of Indian Railways.”
The Ministry has set aside a sum of Rs 50 crore for providing innovation grants to employees, start-ups and growth oriented small businesses to support internal and external innovation. The initiative would be administered by an Innovation Committee comprising reputed investors, representatives from National Academy of Indian Railways, Railway Board and ‘Kayakalp’ headed by Ratan Tata. A program management structure will be put in place to manage this initiative.
On an annual basis, the Ministry seeks to find out solutions to Indian Railway’s most critical problems through an Innovation Challenge. For this year, the areas for the annual challenge are accessibility to trains from low level platforms; increasing capacity of coaches; and digital capabilities at stations.
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In addition, innovation labs will be set up in all our workshops and production units to support creative innovation by locals and staff.
Railway Minister added, “There has been a long felt need for developing a test track for expeditious testing of prototypes under varying test conditions as against the prevalent practice of testing on the Railway network, which leads to traffic delays, besides inability to simulate all test conditions. Indian Railways will develop a Test Track which will go a long way in enhancing the R&D capability of Indian Railways.”