Indian Railways will invest about ₹12,000 crore in developing a common digital platform for integrating information from all its departments leading to savings of about ₹60,000 crore, said Suresh Prabhu, Railway Minister.
“In the last Rail Budget, I had announced an Enterprise Resource Planning system that will be an IT-based platform for system-wide integration and planning,” Mr. Prabhu said during a conference involving leading software companies, to draw the roadmap for the software.
“We then took the advice of [former] Tata Consultancy Services CEO N. Chandrasekaran [now Tata Sons Chairman] and other eminent personalities in framing the terms of references. Now, we will start working on the common platform,” Mr. Prabhu said.
The Minister said ₹10,000–₹12,000 crore of investments will be required for the enterprise-wide digital platform called IR-One ICT that will lead to benefits worth ₹50,000–₹60,000 crore to the Indian Railways in the long run.
“It might take at least two-three years to complete the first phase. With the common platform, the monitoring of the entire Indian Railways operations can be done on a single platform,” he said
“Several passenger complaints can be solved. We may also get to know the vacancies in a train and the number of people travelling. Maintenance issues can be handled remotely. There will be asset utilisation, revenue seepage will reduce and ultimately customers will benefit,” the Minister said.
During the conference, the Minister said passenger complaints were the best pieces of information available to the Railways free-of-cost which can be used as a management tool to take informed decisions.
‘One ICT’ will cover all the aspects of the Indian Railways, including cost analysis, attendance, accounting, asset management, medical management and land management.
“Better capacity and asset utilisation would help the railways run more trains, carry more freight, provide better and reliable services to passengers, increase its revenues and make its operations more safe,” according to a statement from the Railway Ministry.
