Minister of Railways, Suresh Prabhu has announced plans to set up a dedicated, cross functional team called Special Unit for Transportation Research and Analytics (Sutra). The unit’s objective is to carry out detailed analytics leading to optimised investment decisions and operations. The team would comprise professional analysts and best-in-class decision support systems and optimisation engines.
The Ministry has set aside a sum of Rs 50 crore for providing innovation grants to employees, start-ups and growth oriented small businesses to support internal and external innovation. The initiative would be administered by an Innovation Committee comprising reputed investors, representatives from National Academy of Indian Railways, Railway Board and ‘Kayakalp’ headed by Ratan Tata. A program management structure will be put in place to manage this initiative.
On an annual basis, the Ministry seeks to find out solutions to Indian Railway’s most critical problems through an Innovation Challenge. For this year, the areas for the annual challenge are accessibility to trains from low level platforms; increasing capacity of coaches; and digital capabilities at stations. In addition, innovation labs will be set up in all our workshops and production units to support creative innovation by locals and staff.
