Railways To Set Up Designated Portal For Providing Innovative Ideas To Improve Passenger Safety & Amenities

By Chanchal Mukherjee

New Delhi: The Ministry of Railway is set to launch a designated portal that will enable around 12 lakh employees at all levels from top management to ground staff to share their innovative ideas aimed at enhancing passengers’ safety and security on trains.

Currently, employees need to directly contact senior officials and explain about the creative innovations following which some staff personnel feel hesitate to meet them. But this portal will provide opportunity to share their idea freely.

Once submitted, senior officials will review it in detail before granting approval for further improvement and developing it properly to increase the benefits of passengers and railways. This step is expected to lead to improved passenger facilities while also strengthening the efficiency and safety of railway operations.

Various railway staff, recently, gave their innovative ideas which were adopted and implemented in Indian Railway to get fast growth. For instance, Himanshu Ramdeo, Senior Divisional Electrical Engineer of Central Railway conceptualized and developed data-driven initiatives transformed crew training and utilization. It is a yard signal layout app for crew training, which was replicated across divisions, and expanded running room capacity with new facilities. “Consequently, loco failures and crew detentions fell by 59 per cent, and stalling cases reduced from 33 to 4. Sustained counseling, safety seminars, and focused supervision ensured zero SPAD cases in 2024,” the railway officials informed.

Similarly, Abhinav Bansal, Senior Divisional Mechanical Engineer, Eastern Railway, developed a real-time data model for Vande Bharat trains to monitor event logs and physical parameters. The system segregates faults by subsystems, detects threshold breaches, and suggests corrective actions. “His work helped identify faulty valves, Sensors, and loose connections, improving reliability and ensuring smoother train operations,” the railways said.

Another railway employee, Narendra Kumar Ravi, Senior Section Engineer of Eastern Railway invented a mechanical tool to reload MIG/MAG filler wire onto plastic bobbins, enabling the reuse of damaged spools, preventing substantial cost savings and improving wagon availability. “Ravi led the manufacturing of first BRN 22.9 wagons in Indian Railways at Jamalpur workshop, ensuring high-quality welding completed in record time in compliance with RDSO and manufacturing guidelines,” as per railways.

There are several other staff who have developed or created new innovations to grow railways and provide better facilities to the passengers as well. According to the Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, the dedicated portal will support such creative thinkers to share their innovations to achieve new milestones in safety and reliability of railways.

To fulfill the expectations of travellers from Indian Railways, Vaishnaw said, “I want to invite all thoughts and creative ideas from the staff which will help to reform the railways to development. The railway will very soon launch a dedicated portal where employees will be able to share their ideas (with name or on condition of anonymity). Each and every idea will be taken seriously and reviewed then that will be incorporated for reforms.”

Vaishnaw emphasised a consultative and participative approach to improving railway services.

• Engage Startups:

Railway will engage more with startups and innovators, encourage employees to contribute reform ideas, and ensure that successful innovations are scaled across the entire network. Drawing parallels with major national reforms. In addition, Railway will demonstrate the same courage and confidence in driving change.

• Capacity Enhancement:

To meet growing passenger and freight demand, Indian Railway has expanded its network on an unprecedented scale. Nearly 35,000 km of new railway tracks have been built, improving connectivity across the country and reducing congestion on busy routes. Railway manufacturing has also increased sharply over the past three years. Large number of wagons have been procured, and locomotive production has risen, making India one of the world's leading railway manufacturing hubs, with output matching or even surpassing that of the US and EU in some areas.

• Future Targets:

Railway safety has improved significantly, with serious accidents reduced by nearly 90 per cent from about 170 earlier to around 12. The next goal is to cut accidents by 95 percent and bring the number into single digits. This will be achieved through continued investment in safety infrastructure, better training for staff, and the wider use of advanced technologies such as the Kavach safety system and related tools.

• Passenger Services:

Passenger-focused reforms are a key part of the initiative. Better planning and operations helped Indian Railways smoothly handle heavy travel demand during festivals. Special attention is being given to improving maintenance, holding vendors accountable, enhancing cleanliness, improving the onboard experience, ensuring reliable services, and increasing overall efficiency. Stations redevelopment is progressing with a strong focus on facilities for everyday passengers, along with a renewed drive to improve cleanliness on trains and at stations.