RAILWAY MINISTER INAUGURATES SEMINAR ON EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES
AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
The Union Minister
of Railways, Shri Nitish Kumar has said that emerging technologies
in Railways had thrown a major challenge in the areas of their
adoption and making them fool-proof in Indian conditions. Inaugurating
a two-day Seminar on Emerging Technologies in Safety and Customer
Satisfaction, organized by Institution of Railway Signals and
Telecom Engineers India (IRSTE) here today, Shri Nitish Kumar
said that funds would not be a constraint in improving an efficient
signalling and telecom system on the Railways to strengthen safety
now that a non-lapsable Special Railway Safety Fund was available.
Talking at length
about emerging technologies, the Minister announced that negotiations
were underway with the Ministry of Communications for equity participation
of Mahanagar Telephones Nigam Limited (MTNL) and Bharat Sanchar
Nigam Limited (BSNL) in the RailTel Corporation for improving
telecom on Railways both for improving its safety standards and
commercial utilization. The Minister further said that he had
a meeting in this connection with his counterpart in the Ministry
of Communications and Information Technology. The Minister said
that the negotiations were in the process of fructification.
Talking of safety
and customer care, the Railway Minister said that safety received
topmost priority on Railways and since November, 2001, the Special
Railway Safety Fund (SRSF) was operational. Since then more than
5000 kms of track have been renewed, 341 distressed rail bridges
repaired in addition to laying track circuiting and improving
signaling and telecom. In this connection, he mentioned optic
fibre cable linking of Bangalore, Secunderabad and Chennai by
RaiTel India Limited which would be commissioned later this month.
Besides, Anti-Collision Device (ACD) was to be introduced from
the current financial year onwards which provided a technology
unique to Indian Railways. The Minister also said that the trial
of Inter-net on a moving train was successful and it would be
introduced shortly in one of the trains. He said that this was
something special to Indian Railways and nowhere to be seen worldwide.
The Railway Minister
also called upon the railway officials to speed up all safety
related programmes on Indian Railways to make safety a fool-proof
in order to provide customer satisfaction. To eliminate human
error, the Minister said that several measures were afoot to improve
the quality of human resource on Indian Railways. In this connection,
Shri Nitish Kumar announced that Driver and Assistant Driver of
Indian Railways would be re-designated as Loco Pilot and Assistant
Loco Pilot as a mark of their morale booster.
Earlier, the President
IRSTE and Managing Director RailTel Corporation, Shri A.K. Chopra
talked of challenges before Indian Railways in the field of signalling
and telecom and how the officials were tackling them. The Member
Electrical, Railway Board Shri S.C. Gupta, who is patron of IRSTE,
delivered a key note address giving an overview of technological
scenario of signalling and telecom and the improvements being
made in that field. The Chairman Railway Board, Shri I.I.M.S Rana
in his address touched upon overall improvement being made in
safety, customer care, punctuality and challenges ahead of Indian
Railways. He said that now that the Railways were as never before
subjected to Media scrutiny and therefore the railway fraternity
should give their best to strengthen and improve safety standards.
He, however, maintained that funds would not be a constraint in
improving safety on railways.
The two-day seminar
is attended by delegates from Indian Railways and its public sector
undertakings and various serving industries in signaling and telecom
and technocrats from eleven countries. The deliberations of the
seminar are expected to help the Government take right steps for
further improving signalling and telecom.
