India, Switzerland sign two MoUs for technical cooperation in Railways

India and Switzerland on 31 August 2017 signed two Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) in the field of Railways.

The two MoUs were signed between Ministry of Railways and Swiss Confederation after high-level talks between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Doris Leuthard, President of Swiss Confederation during her visit to New Delhi.

First MoU

• The MoU was signed between Ministry of Railways and Federal Department of the Environment, Transport and Communications of the Swiss Confederation for technical cooperation in Rail Sector.

• It was signed by Ashwani Lohani, Chairman Railway Board and Andreas Baum, Swiss Ambassador to India in the presence of Indian Prime Minister and Swiss President.

• The pact is a follow up on bilateral cooperation in Rail sector that was agreed upon during a meeting between Indian Railway Minister Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu and Swiss Ambassador in July 2016.

The MoU aims at cooperation in the following areas:

1. Traction Rolling stock

2. EMU and Train sets

3. Traction Propulsion Equipments

4. Freight and Passenger Cars

5. Tilting Trains

6. Railway Electrification Equipments

7. Train scheduling and operation improvement

8. Railway Station modernization

9. Multimodal transport

10.Tunneling technology

Second MoU

• The second MoU was signed between Konkan Railway Corporation Limited (KRCL) and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich.

• It was signed by Sanjay Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of Konkan Railway Corporation Ltd. (KRCL) and Prof. Sarah Springman, Rector of ETH Zurich.

• The MoU aims to help the Konkan Railway in establishing the George Fernandes Institute of Tunnel Technology (GFITT) at Goa, especially for assimilation and dissemination of knowledge in the field of tunnelling.

Objective of GFITT

The GFITT aims to train KRCL's own manpower for its Tunnelling Projects.

It also wishes to generate qualified and trained personnel for the benefit of other Government organisations, private sector and even foreign organisations to bridge the huge gap in levels of knowledge and qualified manpower required to meet the key segment of infrastructure development in India.