Indian Railways will invest more than Rs 50 crore annually to fund startups under Indian Railway Innovation Policy — Startups for Railways policy, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said.

Highlights of the policy:

• Under the Indian Railway Innovation Policy, the Railways will invest in startups to get a headstart in procuring innovations directly from them with a promise of up to Rs 1.5 crore of seed money for innovative technological solutions for the national transporter.

• The policy is not just limited to the idea. Indian Railways will follow it through to the product after proof of concept and scaling it up, doubling the grant support and finally adoption of successfully developed product/technology for regular use and even support for two to three years. 

• The annual budget for the policy will be around Rs 40-50 crore and an additional fund for the divisional railway managers so that they can find on-field solutions to on-field problems. 

• The funding scheme has been fixed on a cost-sharing basis in equal proportions (50:50) by the Indian Railways and an innovator. 

• The intellectual property rights (IPR) for innovations will remain with the innovator.

• Throughout the entire developmental journey, railways’ field officers, Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO), zonal and railway board officers will continuously support and hand-hold the innovators.

• In May, field units were asked to provide problem areas. In response to it, around 160 problem statements have been received. To start with, 11 problems statements have been identified to deal via the new innovation policy and uploaded on the website.

• These include broken rail detection system, rail stress monitoring system, track inspection technologies for accurate inspection, and superior elastometric pad for heavy haul freight wagons.

• It also sought innovations for light weight wagons for carrying commodities like salt, track cleaning machine, app for post training revision and self-service refresher courses, use of remote sensing, geomatics, GIS or bridge inspection and development of analytical tools by using digital data for improving passenger services.

• The Indian Railway Innovation Policy will identify and enable Indian innovators to engage with the railways for developing cost-effective, implementable, scalable solutions and functional prototypes for the national transporter.

• The selection through open, transparent and fair process which will entail innovators uploading their concepts with necessary proof on a dedicated portal, the Indian Railway Innovation Portal on web address www.innovation.indianrailways.gov.in.

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