Railway Ministry launches Railway Innovation Policy

New Delhi [India], June 13 : Union Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw on Monday launched the 'Startups for Railways', aiming to bring scale and efficiency in the field of operation, maintenance and infrastructure creation through the participation of very large and untapped startup ecosystem.
Talking to ANI about the policy, Vaishnaw said, "the long-going discussions over the integration of technology into Indian Railways have taken a firm shape today in the form of the initiative launched today. Through this platform, the start-ups will get a good opportunity to connect with Railways."
Talking about the challenges, he added that out of over 100 problem statements received from different divisions, field offices/zones of Railways, 11 like rail fracture, headway reduction etc. have been taken up for phase-1 of this program. "These will be presented before the start-ups to find innovative solutions. Now, startups can use this opportunity. We ensure their support from Indian Railways in form of a 50 per cent capital grant, assured market, scale and ecosystem," he added.
According to the Indian Railway Innovation Policy, now, the innovator can get a grant up to Rs 1.5 Crore on an equal sharing basis with the provision of milestone-wise payment.
Under this policy, the innovator will be selected by a transparent and fair system which will be dealt through the online portal inaugurated today.
An official statement by the Railways Ministry also read that the developed Intellectual property rights (IPR) will also remain with the innovator only.
Notably, in May, the field units were asked to provide Problem Areas. In response of which, around 160 problem statements have been received till date. To start with, 11 problem statements have been identified to deal with via the new Innovation Policy and uploaded on the portal.
The said problem statements, include, Broken Rail Detection System; Rail Stress Monitoring System; Headway Improvement System for suburban section interoperable with Indian Railways National ATP system; Automation of Track Inspection Activities; Design of superior Elastomeric Pad (EM Pad) for Heavy Haul freight Wagons; Development of online Condition Monitoring System for traction motors of 3-phase Electric Locomotives; Light-weight wagon for transporting commodities like Salt; Development of the analytical tool by using digital data for improving passenger services; Track Cleaning Machine; App for post-training revision and self-service refresher courses; and the Use of Remote Sensing, Geomatics and GIS for bridge inspection.
Other problem statements have been collected from Railways, which are under scrutiny and shall be uploaded in a phased manner.