Ashwini Vaishnaw Launches Indian Railways Innovation Policy 'Startups For Railways' The Union railway minister asked the startups to use this opportunity and ensured them all the support from the side of Indian Railways
By Teena Jose
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Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Union railway minister, has officially launched the Indian Railways Innovation Portal with a startup policy at the Rail Bhavan on Monday. Indian Railway has taken this prominent initiative in the field of innovation through the participation of startups and other entities. The initiative aims at promoting Indian innovators and entrepreneurs through a series of innovative startups in the ecosystem and services of railway. The startup policy claims to bring scale and efficiency in the field of operation, maintenance and infrastructure creation through the participation of the vast startup ecosystem.
"The long going discussions over integration of technology into Indian Railways have taken the firm shape in form of this initiative launched on Monday. Through this platform, startups will get a good opportunity to connect with Railways," said Ashwini Vaishnaw, while speaking at the launch event.
The railway minister also requested the startups to use this opportunity and ensured them all the support from the side of Indian Railways in the form of 50 per cent capital grant, assured market, scale and ecosystem.
"This initiative will help the railway to connect itself with the vast pool of innovative startups. Out of more than 100 problem statements received from different divisions, field offices and zones of railways, 11 problem statements like rail fracture, headway reduction etc. have been taken up for the phase I of this program," the minister further added.
As per reports, the Indian Railway Innovation Policy grants up to INR 1.5 crore to innovators on equal sharing basis with a provision of milestone-wise payment, the complete process from floating of the problem statement to the development of the prototype is online with a defined timeline to make it transparent, trials of prototypes will be done on Railways and enhanced funding will be provided to scale up deployment on the successful performance of the prototypes.
