Hon’ble Vice President of India, M. Venkaiah Naidu inaugurated an International Conference on Technological Advancements in Railway and Metro Projects (IC-TRAM 2017) and an Exhibition on October 6 - 7, 2017 at New Delhi.. The conference Minister of Railways & Coal, Piyush Goyal also addressed the conference. The Conference has been organized by the Defence Infrastructure Planning & Management Council(DIPM), the Ministry of Railways, the Ministry of Urban Development and the Niti Aayog. The Chairman, Railway Board, Shri Ashwani Lohani, Member, Niti Aayog and Chief Patron of DIPM Society, Dr. V. K. Saraswat, and other dignitaries were present on the occasion. Addressing the conference, the Vice President of India, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu has said that the Technology along with managerial excellence can chart a new trajectory.The Vice President said that with urbanization taking place at a rapid pace in India, the need for efficient and cost-effective transport is critical in ensuring faster mobility and sustainable development. He further said that new concepts such as ‘Transit Oriented Development’ should be tried out and promoted which will improve the lives of people living around the metro stations in a big way.
The Vice President said that the Indian Railways need to plan for a massive expansion very meticulously with forward looking, efficient technologies and innovative practices currently available across the globe and adopt them to serve our country’s aspiring population. He further said that the IT revolution sweeping the world, to which India has also been a major contributor, is bound to improve the efficiencies in signaling, communications and safety and help in areas like intelligent transportation systems.The Vice President said that in the Indian ethos, we believe that science and technology are tools to improve the quality of life and we say “Bahujana hitaya, bahujana sukhaya” implying that we aim at the good of humanity at large and also care for the happiness of the entire population on this planet. We also believe this is possible if we are open to new ideas and concepts, either home grown or from outside, he added.The Vice President expressed his hope that the discussions and the deliberations in this two-day conference will provide a fast-track approach to build many state of the art railway systems that will improve the economy and the quality of life of people in India and the rest of the world.