Prabhu termed the IRCTC hacking incident as “baseless” after informing that a few days back, he had personally discussed the systems audit and cyber security issues with consultants. Cyber security is of paramount importance to the Indian Railways. He was talking at the #ITforParivahan Stakeholders Summit 2016 in Mumbai.
He touched upon various IT projects, that are planned and in the works at the Railways. The purpose of the IT initiatives is to save costs, increase transparency, reduce corruption and boost efficiency in the Indian Railways (IR).
The Railways is planning to use IT significantly in all its forms. The plan is to converge Geographic Information System (GIS) with ICT technologies like Drones. It also involves partnering with ISRO.
The work is on to integrate all the departments in the railways and thus run IR on an independent ERP. “While discussing this with the TCS MD, he told me this can be the world’s biggest IT project ever,” states Sunil Prabhu, Minister of Railways, GoI
The processes in ticketing, end-to-end, from booking to cancellation will soon be enabled online. A dedicated complaints redressal mechanism is in the works, “yet the swiftness with which complaints has been looked into and action being taken using Twitter, the Indian railways has been appreciated in many countries,” says Prabhu. This has brought the railways and citizens closer.
The e-tendering will also be initiated for projects to be undertaken for the Indian railways. Soon, the minutes of the meetings will be posted online. Soon the railway wagons can also be booked online.
In this year’s Railway budget, 50 Cr were allocated for companies who can come up with an innovative idea for the Indian railways.