NEW DELHI: Railways is embarking on a massive programme to ensure safety of the entire network and there is no constraint of budget when it comes to safety of passengers, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday.
The Minister was speaking at the International Conference on Technological Advancements in Railway & Metro Technologies inaugurated by Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu here. Mr Goyal urged the researchers to come up with new ideas and innovations to make the passenger experience “delight and satisfactory”, adding that the Chairman Railway Board Ashwani Lohani and his team were working on some futuristic ideas.
Mr Goyal said, “Time has come to go in for new technology. Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Research Designs & Standards Organisation (RDSO) can work in combination to see what can be done in a smarter and faster way and we need to fast track the measures to make passenger travel comfortable”.
Stressing on R&D, the Minister said one has to go beyond the boundary to think and get new ideas and there cannot be a budget that will restrict innovations.
Giving example of Japan that has developed so fast, the Minister said the growth was due to research, innovations and new ideas. He said there was a need for an eco-system that encouraged researchers and scientists to think out of the box.
The Minister hoped that conference will help and educate the Railways in its plan in taking forward the commitment the Government has made to the people of the country to make “Indian Rail safe, secure, punctual and improve the amenities and facilities for passengers”.
On the occasion, Chairman Railway Board Ashwani Lohani said the country was changing so was the Railways which had witnessed a new energy under the new Minister. He said there was a need to bring in new technology in several areas in the railways that would improve the national transport.
Mr Lohani said, the outcome from the deliberations would give new ideas and innovations that would be implacable. Niti Aayog member V K Saraswat said this conference holds importance as the railways world over was galloping and Indian Railways was also moving with a moto of “speed, scale and safety”.
He said there was a big push in R&D in the Railways but called for rigorous set up to take forward the indigenous R&D. At the initiative of the Defence Infrastructure Planning & Management Council (India) and IMR Media an International Conference on Technological Advancements in Railway and Metro Projects (IC-TRAM 2017) is being organised on October 6 ? 7.
The conference will bring up new technological ideas and innovations to the fore and help Railways embrace some of those ideas for moving forward in the present era. In the past two decades the Railways had grown manifold not just in terms of size and volume, but also in terms of usage of cutting-edge technologies.
Today, the national transport was entering new fields, such as High Speed Railways, Dedicated Freight Corridors, bridging new frontiers by laying tracks in inhospitable terrains of the North-East, building mountain railways and using alternative fuels to reduce dependence on fossil fuels to name a few initiatives.
In all, 40 speakers are scheduled to address the delegates over two days. (AGENCIES)
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