A conference under the theme “IR-One ICT (One Information and Communication Technology) Building Digital Railway for Digital India” was organized on 27.03.2017 at National Rail Museum Auditorium, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi.The conference was inaugurated by Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu. Shri Rajen Gohain, Minister of state for Railways, was specially present on the occasion. Shri A.K. Mital, Chairman, Railway Board, Shri Pradeep Kumar, Member Staff, Railway Board along with other Board Members, Officers of Indian Railways and delegates from NASSCOM and IT industry also attended the conference. Speaking on the occasion, Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu, Minister of Railways said, “It’s a very interesting program. Over a period of time, huge growth is observed in IT Sector. There are huge opportunities in IT sector. IT industry looks around for business all around; they don’t look for business next door. IT industry has done well and there are lot of opportunities in India.
Indian Railways offers a mammoth opportunity. Indian Railways is not only about operation. Indian Railways does lot of activities in different spheres like medical, education, social, environmental. In the budget speech, it was announced that Indian Railways needs integrated and holistic approach for digitalization. It was explored how Indian Railways can partner with IT industry through NASSCOM. Through this enterprise, Vendor and Railway should benefit mutually. It’ll be a turnaround situation. It will be a game changer if Railway can save 6 Billion dollar by investing 2 billion dollar. There are two models for Digital Platform. One is Capex Platform, another is Opex model. There can be the third model where Cris and vendor may partner together. The figure of 6 Billion dollar does not include Non Fare Revenue. Non Fare Revenue can be beneficial as soft assets of Railway can be monetized. Lot of Non Fare Revenue can result in significant improvement in revenue. This Digital Platform shall be the biggest Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Cyber Security should be kept in mind. Precautions should be taken. It should be explored how line functions can be achieved through ICT, how future goals may be realised through ICT.
This roundtable can be immensely helpful to realise these goals in less time.” Leading speakers on various subjects from India and abroad spoke on spectrum of topics including Dr. Rainer Lukhaup from Deutsche Bahn and Ms. Salana McElory from G. E. During the conference the panel discussion on Special Purpose Vehicle for ICT deployment was chaired by Sh. Rentala Chandrashkher, President of NASSCOM.It also covered the achievements and present status of IT initiatives done by Indian Railways .There were stalls for showcasing Information technology.IR-OneICT or Indian Railways One Information and Communication Technology Platform is an initiative to enable Indian Railways to deliver goods and services in tune with the demands of the fast growing economy by creation of logistics & transport capacity enabled by Digital platform. It shall involve use of digital technology to better connect the goods and services with the market and efficient internal management leading to higher customer satisfaction. The better capacity and asset utilization would mean helping Indian Railways in running more trains, carrying more freight, providing better and reliable services to the passenger, increased revenues, safe operations which would be ensured by IR-OneICT platform by using best in class technology, world class business analytics, state of the art software solutions available and use of automated data collection from single source with real time availability.