Analytics team to optimise investment decisions; Rs 50 crore grant offered
Analytics team to optimise investment decisions; Rs 50 crore grant offered
Indian Railways has set up a new team to use analytics for optimising investment decisions and earmarked a sum of Rs 50 crore to offer grants to employees and startups for supporting innovation as part of this year's Budget.
Announcing the Railway Budget for 2016-17 in Parliament on Thursday, Union minister Suresh Prabhu said a dedicated, cross functional team called Special Unit for Transportation Research and Analytics (SUTRA) would be set up for carrying out detailed analytics leading to optimised investment decisions and operations. “This team would comprise of professional analysts and best-in-class decision support systems and optimisation engines,” he said.
As an organisation, Railways collects over 100 terabytes of data every year, yet it is hardly analysed to gain business insights. A sum of Rs 50 crore has been set aside for providing inn-ovation grants to emplo-yees, startups and small businesses to support internal and external innovation.
“On an annual basis we will seek out solutions to Indian Railway’s most critical problems through an Innovation Challenge. The initiative would be administered by an Innovation Committee comprising of reputed investors, representatives from National Academy of Indian Railways, Railway Board and ‘Kayakalp’ headed by Tata,” he said.
The government has also begun the process of introducing wi-fi services at stations, especially for youth and business travellers. He proposed to commission Wi-Fi services at 100 stations this year and at 400 more stations in the next two years in partnership with Google.
Earnings fall short of Rs 15,000 crore Shares of the railway-related stocks were down between four to 10 per cent but all was not gloom and doom as few steel stocks like JSW Steel was up Rs 16.50 whilst Tata Steel was marginally down as railway minister Suresh Prabhu announced the laying of 2,800 kms of new tracks.
Major beneficiaries are the specialised cable companies like CMI due to the annou-ncement of the 2,000 kms of electrification. But there was no such respite for wagon makers and allied sectors. Shares of Titagarh Wagon, Texmaco Rail, Kalindee Rail Nirman, Stone India, Hind Rectifiers and Kernex Microsys-tems plunged between four to 10 per cent in the absence of any announcement of additional coaches etc.
However the Sensex plunged below the 23,000 mark to close down at 22,976.00 on Thursday primarily because of global factors like China.
Auto hub gets thumbs-up The proposal to set up India’s first rail auto hub in Chennai announced in the Railway Budget will provide a big support to the automobile industry, facilitating transportation of vehicles from manufacturing plants to respective destinations, say carmakers.
Railway minister Suresh Prabhu said, “To capture the automobile traffic, we will soon inaugurate India’s first rail auto hub in Chennai.”
Reacting to this, Hyundai Motor senior V-P Rakesh Srivastava said, “Last mile connectivity, reduced logistic costs and time, (are) addressed in one big infrastructure move enabling mass transportation of vehicles with the Auto Hub at Chennai giving a big support to the auto industry.”
Renault India operations country CEO and MD Sumit Sawhney said India’s first rail auto hub in Chennai will facilitate transportation of cars from plants to respective destinations.
