Railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw yesterday announced the launch of a dedicated tech policy to rope in startups for promoting innovation in Indian Railways.

Modelled after the defence ministry’s innovations for defence excellence (iDEX) initiative, the Rail Tech policy aims to engage innovators, startups and other institutions to build solutions for the ministry.

As part of this, Vaishnaw launched a new “Rail Tech portal”, where startups can propose solutions directly to the Railways. The platform also introduces a single-stage, detailed submission process for proposals instead of complex, multi-tier methods.

Under the initiative, the ministry will offer up to 50% of the funding once the project is approved. Post the “successful” development of the solution, the Railways said that it will place “substantial long-term orders” for the innovation.

The minister said that the objective of the policy is to create a simplified framework focussed on adoption of new technologies, rather than the earlier system of vendor selection based strictly on rigid specifications. He further added that the portal aims to remove procedural bottlenecks and create a transparent, digital-only, simplified and innovation-friendly ecosystem.

“The policy provides a user-friendly interface, increases the scale-up grant more than three times and doubles the maximum grant for prototype development and trials,” read an official statement by Indian Railways.

Vaishnaw also urged startups to develop use cases such as AI-based elephant intrusion detection system, predictive

AI-based fire detection system in coaches, rail stress monitoring system, AI-based coach cleaning and monitoring system, track monitoring tools, among others. “Predictive technologies capable of analysing electrical parameters in overhead wires to foresee potential failures were also mentioned as promising areas where startups are already working,” read the statement.

The policy, Vaishnaw said, has been framed with an open and forward-looking mindset to encourage such comprehensive innovation across operational and administrative domains.

Meanwhile, in another reform, the Railways minister also announced the deployment of AI and complete digitisation of the Railway Claims Tribunal (RCT). The e-RCT platform will enable filing, processing and adjudication of claims digitally.

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