Railway Innovation Policy: Start-Ups Can Avail Grants Up To Rs 50 Crore Annually For New Tech Solutions

The innovator under the Indian Railway Innovation Policy can avail a grant up to Rs 1.5 crore on an equal sharing basis with the provision of milestone-wise payment.

Indian Railways train

Source : ANI

New Delhi: Union minister of railways Ashwini Vaishnaw on Monday launched the ‘Startups for Railways’ to encourage participation of large and untapped startup ecosystem to enhance scale and efficiency in operation, maintenance and infrastructure creation. Giving the opportunity to start-ups to connect with Railways, Vaishnaw said, “The long-going discussions over the integration of technology into Indian Railways have taken a firm shape today in the form of the initiative launched today.” Stating the challenges, Vaishnaw said out of over 100 problem statements received from different divisions, field offices/zones of Railways, 11 problem statements like rail fracture, headway reduction etc have been taken up for phase 1 of this program.

In May, the field units were asked to provide problem areas. In response almost 160 problem statements have been received till date. To start with, 11 problem statements have been identified to deal with via the new innovation policy and uploaded on the portal.

Here’s What Railways Have Envisaged

The problems will be presented before the start ups to find innovative solutions. The minister urged the startups to use this opportunity and ensured them of support from Indian Railways in form of 50 percent capital grant, assured market, scale and ecosystem

The innovator under the Indian Railway Innovation Policy can avail a grant up to Rs 1.5 crore on an equal sharing basis with the provision of milestone-wise payment.

Under this policy, the innovator will be selected by a transparent and fair system which will be dealt through the online portal inaugurated on Monday.

In the statement by the Railways Ministry, it mentioned that the developed Intellectual property rights (IPR) will also remain with the innovator only.

De-centralization of complete product development process at divisional level will be done to avoid delays.

What are the problems aimed for solution?

The problem statements include Broken Rail Detection System; Rail Stress Monitoring System; Headway Improvement System for suburban section interoperable with Indian Railways National ATP system; Automation of Track Inspection Activities; Design of superior Elastomeric Pad (EM Pad) for Heavy Haul freight Wagons; Development of online Condition Monitoring System for traction motors of 3-phase Electric Locomotives; Light-weight wagon for transporting commodities like Salt; Development of the analytical tool by using digital data for improving passenger services; Track Cleaning Machine; App for post-training revision and self-service refresher courses; and the Use of Remote Sensing, Geomatics and GIS for bridge inspection.

Other problem statements have been collected from Railways, which are under scrutiny and shall be uploaded in a phased manner.