Indian Railways has taken an important initiative in the field of innovation through participation of start-ups and other entities. Honrsquo;ble Minister of Railways, Communications and Electronics Information Technology, Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw has launched ldquo;StartUps for Railwaysrdquo; in Rail Bhavan, New Delhi. Salient details of Indian Railway Innovation Policy are as under:- o Grant up to Rs. 1.5 Crore to innovators on equal sharing basis with provision of milestone-wise payment. o Complete process from floating of problem statement to development of prototype is online with defined time line to make it transparent and objective. o Trials of prototypes will be done in Railways. Enhanced funding will be provided to scale up deployment on successful performance of prototypes. o Selection of Innovator/s will be done by a transparent and fair system. o Developed Intellectual property rights (IPR) will remain with innovators only. o Assured developmental order to innovator o De-centralization of the complete product development process at divisional level to avoid delays. This policy will bring scale and efficiency in the field of operation, maintenance and infrastructure creation through participation of a very large and untapped startup ecosystem.
