Indian Railways has renewed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee along with IIT Kanpur and IIT Madras to foster cutting-edge joint collaborative research. The objective of the MoU for Indian Railways is to intensify outreach to academia and industry to leverage the domain knowledge and expertise for undertaking core and fundamental research for the development of new technologies and applications for use on the Indian Railways network.
The MoU will facilitate research in the core area of Track, Bridges and Structures, Civil Infrastructure of High-Speed Rail, Bridges, Structures and Health Monitoring, Track Management System, Remote monitoring of Railway Assets, among others through the Centre for Railway Research (CRR) sanctioned by the Ministry of Railways for undertaking core and fundamental research.
The MoU was signed between Alka Arora Misra, Principal Executive Director (T&MPP), Ministry of Railways and Manish Shrikhande, Dean, Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy, IIT Roorkee in the presence of Chairman & CEO, Railway Board, Vinod Kumar Yadav, Director General (HR), PED (T&MPP), Vashishtha Johri, General Manager, Southern Railway, Prof Ajit K Chaturvedi, Director, IIT Roorkee, Prof Manoranjan Parida, Deputy Director, IIT Roorkee, Prof Yogendra Singh, IIT Roorkee, Prof Satish Sharma, IIT Roorkee Prof Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras, Prof Ravindra Gettu, IIT Madras, Prof Abhay Karandikar, Director, IIT Kanpur among others.
“The Indian Railways has witnessed a paradigm shift in organizational structure with segregation of management and research and development cadres. Research and Development is our priority and it can be successful only if it is fully integrated with the on-ground situation.
“We look forward to a long-lasting partnership to foster cutting-edge research that will herald a transformation of Indian Railways. Going forward, we also plan to restructure RDSO on lines of Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO),” said Vinod Kumar Yadav, Chairman& CEO, Railway Board.