Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhu inaugurated one day workshop on “Adaptation and & Sustainability of Modern Technologies in Railways Signaling & Telecom with focus on Skill Development and Make in India” i.e. 19th April 2017 at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi. Chairman, Railway Board Shri A.K.Mital, other Railway Board Members,Senior Railway Officials, Delegates from Zonal Railways and members from telecom industry were present on the occasion. The workshop started with an inaugural session which was addressed by Shri A.K.Mital, Chairman, Railway Board & Shri Akhil Agarwal, DG (S&T), Railway Board. The workshop was hosted by Institution of Railway Signal & Telecommunication Engineers (IRSTE) and RailTel,(Railway PSU) on behalf of Indian Railways.
Speaking on the occasion, Shri Suresh Prabhu said, “There is a huge exponential growth in Signal & Telecom sector, Digitization has created new dimensions in Signal & Telecom.Identifying Right technology is important. Make in India is an important programme of Government of India.Railways play a big role in Make in India programme proposed. Loco Production in Bihar is a big part of Global Supply under Make in India programme.Through Make in India, jobs are created as well as supply chain is created.Value Chain & Supply Chain are two different aspects like Make in India & Develop in India.Developing technology in India enhance value chain, thus it should be our priority.More R & D may help in developing technology in India, More R& D means more value addition.How can we partner in cutting edge technologies in areas of communication should be our priority.How can we develop the technologies and capture some value in value chain should be our focus. We need to make Railways as value chain of Global Supplies.We have to upgrade technologies in Railways, modernise it and impart skills to those who operate these technologies.The focus should be a clear cut road map on how India will look in 2022?”
The inaugural session was followed by two technical sessions with five papers presented in each technical session. The first technical session contained paper related to “Skill Development” in modern signaling. The second technical session had papers with the theme “Self Reliance”. These included manufacturing S&T systems under Make in India and improving the maintainers’ skill to deal with modern technology.
The papers in the first technical session were presented by experts from Indian Railways, M/s Kaynes,M/s TCS, M/s Hitachi & IIT Kharagpur. The second technical session contained papers presented by M/s Frauscher, M/s TSTS, M/s Ansaldo, M/s Thales & M/s Hima, Germany. All papers in the technical session were well received and each technical session was followed with a session on questions. The workshop ended with a vote of thanks.