Railways urges all zones to post operational issues on 'Innovation Portal'

New Delhi, Nov 20 (PTI) The Railway Ministry has urged all its zones to share their operational problems on the ‘Innovation Portal’ so that start-ups, individual innovators, research and development institutes, medium and small scale industries and other entrepreneurs can come up with groundbreaking solutions.

With the launch of the 'Startups for Railways' initiative in 2022, the Ministry opened its doors to innovators to co-create the future of rail transport and in the past four years it has received overwhelming response, with over 4,043 entities registering on the platform “Over 4,043 entities have registered on the Indian Railways Innovation Portal, including 416 startups, 2,655 individual innovators, 233 MSMEs, 213 R&D institutes, plus NGOs and section 8 companies among many others,” a senior railway official said.

“These entities have come up with cutting-age solutions with issues related to Smart track inspection systems, Fire/smoke detection for coaches, Solar-powered LVPH coaches, Light-weight wagons for salt transport, Rail stress monitoring and broken rail detection, Robotics, sensor-based alarms, and e-Seal systems and solutions for safer shunting and caution relaying,” he added.

Officials said that so far over 131 workshops/meetings have been held across zones and PSUs in which approximately 1,560 startups and innovators participated and deliberated upon issues related with operational safety.

According to Indian Railways, some of the solutions such as track Inspection technologies for accurate inspection and provision of solar power generating system with flexi solar PV panels on roof top of LVPH coaches have proven effective for operational safety and environmental sustainability.

“We are working with partner firms to leverage these innovations in railway operations,” a railway official said. PTI JP NB