Indian Railways has to go in a big way to adopt IT in many areas as the requirement is huge. At the same time, funds allocated for such activities is inadequate showing that technology adoption is not on top of the Railway’s budgetary allocation, or agenda. Sunil Kumar, Managing Director, Centre for Railway Information System (CRIS), speaks with Sumantra Das.
What are some of CRIS’s recent activities for Indian Railways?
CRIS has developed software for seven departments in passenger and freight segments. The applications developed include the Passenger Reservation System (PRS), National Train Enquiry System, Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS), Control Office Application, and Parcel Management System. We are also developing systems for locomotive management, skill management, and signalling management. We are developing software for railway production units like Integral Coach Factory (ICF); we have also developed an ERP solution for ICF. Similarly, CRIS has done a lot of work in e-tendering and e-procurement.
Does CRIS execute all its projects?
No. About 60 per cent of our projects now are outsourced, while 40 per cent is done on our own. Currently, we are doing a business of Rs 170-180 crore every year, out of which about 60-70 per cent goes to the industry.
Besides ticketing system what are the other major success stories of CRIS?
There are many success stories people don’t talk about. Freight Operating Information Systems (FOIS) is one such very big success story of us. Today, one can see the National Train Enquiry System, where he can get information like where a particular train is running and all the details by our Control Office Application system. Similarly, there are applications like e-procurement initiated by CRIS. Presently, about 80 per cent of railway procurement work is being done through e-procurement. So, there are plenty of success stories of CRIS.
Which are the major constraints you find in adoption of technology?
So far CRIS have met only about 20 to 30 per cent of the total requirements of Indian Railways. For a complete IT-enabled service, the Indian Railways need to spend around Rs 1,000 crore per year, while presently they are spending only Rs 300-400 crore per year. So Indian Railways still has to go in a big way to adopt IT in many areas as the requirement is so huge. I feel there are many areas in Railways where IT still to make its presence. What we have done is only public interface side (ticketing part), but in internal interface side, we have not tackled yet and internal interface is quite bigger than anything else. I think this should be a major area of concern.
If funding is the only problem, can we expect a change in the future?
Yes, funds are a major constraint, but the question is how much money we are allocating for such activities (development of IT infra) in the Budget every year. Our focus needs to be broad so that our resources can be well utilised. Presently, those resources which we are generating are mainly because of our social commitment towards society. But some of that should be utilised for IT infra too. My outlook is that Indian Railways is trying to do a lot, but funds are inadequate.
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