Railways to engage start-ups for innovative solutions, digitise Railway Claims Tribunal: Vaishnaw

New Delhi, Feb 26 (PTI) Railways will engage innovators, start-ups, industry and institutions under the new Rail Tech Policy to promote innovation as well as digitise railway claims tribunal to benefit claimants to file their case from anywhere with 24x7 availability, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Thursday.

Introducing two new reforms under the initiative '52 Reforms in 52 Weeks in 2026', Vaishnaw said that the purpose to introduce these reforms is to, first, connect start-ups and innovators with the Railways in a systematic and meaningful way and improve efficiency, accessibility and transparency in all 23 railway claims tribunal benches in the country.

Under the Rail Tech Policy, start-ups can suggest solutions through the Railways' innovation portal in operational safety, passenger amenities and all other aspects of train working in the country, The minister highlighted four features of the scheme - single-stage detailed submission of proposals by the innovator, scale-up grant increased more than three times, maximum grant doubled for prototype development and trials, and user friendly interface Some of the innovation challenges suggested by him are AI-based Elephant Intrusion Detection System, AI-based fire detection system in coaches, drone based broken rail detection system, rail stress monitoring system among others.

Though the railway ministry had already introduced a similar scheme 'Innovation Policy' in 2022 to "develop cost-effective, implementable, scalable solutions" to address quality, reliability and maintainability related issues, Vaishnaw said that the earlier policy had a lot of restrictions.

He added that in the earlier policy, the Railways was supposed to come up with the problems and then innovators were expected to bring solutions to those issues but now with the new policy, anybody can come up with an innovative solution to any problem related to the working of railways.

He stated that the new policy has been framed based on the experience and learning gained from sectors such as defence, electronics and information technology, telecommunication and bio-tech.

According to Vaishnaw, the new policy was drafted after a thorough discussion and consultation with the start-ups.

When asked about budgetary challenges as Railways allocation for research was merely Rs 42 crore in 2024-2025 and Rs 86 crore in 2026-27, he said the budget will come from the respective departments for which the innovative proposal relates to.

"Suppose the innovation is related to the maintenance of tracks, then a part of the budget, allocated for track maintenance, will be used for the innovation. There is no separate head for this," Vaishnaw said.

Outlining the selection process, he stated that once a proposal comes, the concerned department will check whether the suggested solution is feasible and then it will be recommended to the Board to process further.

"The divisions will be given the responsibility to implement the pilot project of the proposal," he added.

Talking about digitisation of railway claims tribunal, he said, "It will benefit litigants to file their cases from anywhere electronically easily with 24x7 availability." He also highlighted benefits such as easy online filing of railway claims from anywhere, automatic alerts/notifications to all users, real time case volumes and monitoring leading to faster resolution, automated document handling and real time insights to benches, use of AI for processing cases.

The minister had earlier introduced the first two reforms concerning train cleaning and Gati Shakti Cargo terminals. PTI JP ZMN