Railway Innovation Policy: Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw launched Railway Innovation Policy “StartUps for Railways” on June 14, 2022 in Rail Bhavan, New Delhi. Under the policy, a grant of up to Rs. 1.5 Crore will be provided to innovators on equal sharing basis with milestone-wise payment provision.
The Railway Innovation policy will provide start ups with a good opportunity to connect with the Indian Railways. Under the phase 1 of the programme, 11 problem statements involving rail fracture and headway reduction will be taken up out of over 100 problem statements received from different divisions and field offices of Railways.
These problem statements will be presented before the start ups to find innovative solutions.
Watch 'StartUps for Railways' launch video below-
Startups for Railways. pic.twitter.com/yDKDN6Cqy6
— Ashwini Vaishnaw (@AshwiniVaishnaw) June 13, 2022
Significance
The Railway Innovation Policy will bring scale and efficiency in the field of operation, maintenance and infrastructure creation in the Railways through participation of very large and untapped startup ecosystem. The Indian
Railway Minister requested the startups to use this opportunity and ensured them of support in form of 50 percent capital grant.
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Railway Innovation Policy: 5 Important Features
1. Grant up to Rs. 1.5 Crore to innovator on equal sharing basis with provision of milestone-wise payment.
2. The entire process, starting from floating of problem statement to development of prototype, will be online with defined time line to make it transparent and objective.
3. The trials of prototypes will be done in Railways. Railways will provide enhanced funding to scale up deployment on successful performance of prototypes.
4. The selection of innovators will be done in a transparent and fair manner through online portal inaugurated by the Railway Minister.
5. The innovator will hold the Developed Intellectual property rights (IPR).
Background
The field units of the Indian Railways were asked to provide problem areas in May 2022. In response to the same, around 160 problem statements were received, out of which 11 have been identified to be presented to the startups via new Railway Innovation Policy.
These include problem statements on broken rail detection system, rail stress monitoring system, automation of track inspection activities, design of superior Elastomeric Pad (EM Pad) for Heavy Haul freight Wagons, light-weight wagon for transporting goods like salt and development of analytical tool using digital data for improving passenger services and track cleaning machine.
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