Minister
of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu launched the following Initiatives:-
1.
RAIL
CLOUD PROJECT.
2.
NIVARAN-Grievance
Portal (First IT Application on Rail Cloud).
3.
Cashless
treatment Scheme in Emergency (CTSE) Scheme and Handing over of
1st CTSE Card.
Minister of State for Railways Shri Rajen Gohain was specially present to
grace the occasion. Member Staff, Shri A.K.Mital, other Railway Board Members
and senior officials were also present on the occasion. Ministry of Railways
has launched the RailCloud project in association with its PSU, RailTel
Corporation of India Limited.
Speaking
on the occasion, Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu said,
“Efforts are being made to bring entire Railway system on Integrated dIGITAL
Platform. RailCloud is another step towards Digitization of Railways. Rail
Cloud works on popular Cloud Computing system. Most Important works are done
through Cloud Computing. Also, this is going to reduce the cost & data may
be safely ensured on the servers. Also, another important step is Cashless
Treatment Scheme in Emergency. Life Expectancy has increased, so many health
problems have evolved. This scheme would improve health care facilities of
Railway employees.”
Salient
Features of the Initiatives Launched:
1.RailCloud
Indian Railway has started a strategic IT initiative, christened IR-OneICT, for
enterprise wide digital single platform with an aim to improve customer
satisfaction, improve revenue and effective, efficient and safe operations. To
achieve the goal of single digital platform for IR a few foundational projects
need to be implemented first, establishment of RailCloud is one such project.
Cloud Computing is the emerging technology for faster and on demand
commensurate deployment of Server resources which result in reduced cost.
Accordingly, RailCloud Phase-I has been sanctioned at the cost of Rs. 53.55 Cr
under PH-17, DF(3) in FY 17-18. Potential benefits to Railways after
implementation of RailCloud are:
● Faster
and on-demand deployment of application- RailCloud will pave the way for
swifter deployment of application (within 24 hrs as compared to conventional
time running into weeks and months). At the same time the cloud hardware and
environment will be available for rigorous testing of the new applications.
● Optimum
use of Servers and storage- The Technology enables maximising the usage of the
available server and storage resulting in accommodation of bigger data and more
applications within same server space.
● Utilization
of existing Infrastructure as part of Cloud- The existing resources available
with railway will be subsumed in RailCloud thereby ensuring that expenditure is
minimized in acquiring new resources.
● Rapid
scalability and elasticity- Server and storage space will scale up and down as
per the demand. This makes the system suitable to meet the higher demand at
peak hours with less expenditure.
● IT
Security enhancement and Standardization: The cloud shall be equipped with
security features as per the latest GOI guidelines, the security features can
be updated in one go for all the applications hosted on the cloud, resulting in
enhanced security and stability with less expenditure and effort.
● Cost
reduction: The server and storage infrastructure will be deployed as per the
requirement, resulting in substantial savings to railway as expenditure will be
incurred as and when required instead of upfront shelling out money on
procurement of expensive servers.
● Better
User Experience: In Cloud, the server resources are constantly scaled up or
down as per the no. of users logged on to the system. This ensures a better
user experience to the customer.
The Managed Network and Virtual
Desktop Interface (VDI) services are also being planned, in near future, for
providing faster and more efficient work environment to each rail worker.
2. NIVARAN-Grievance Portal’First IT application
on RailCloud
‘NIVARAN-Grievance
Portal’ is the first IT application to be launched on the RailCloud. It is the
platform for resolution of service related grievances of serving and former
railway employees. The existing application was hosted on a conventional
server; it has been made cloud-ready and being migrated as the first cloud application
of Indian Railways. It will save significant revenue and at the same time user
experience will also improve.
3. Cashless treatment Scheme in
Emergency (CTSE)
Railway provides
Comprehensive Health Care Facilities to its beneficiaries through in-house
health Institutions, supplementing with referrals to recognized hospitals
whenever necessary. The beneficiaries include retired employees and their
dependent family members. Large no. of retired beneficiaries lives in the
newly developed suburbs of various cities. These parts of the city are often
far away from the established Railway Health Institutions. In this scenario the
RELHS beneficiaries coming to Railway Health Institutions in routine is
acceptable, however in Emergency Situations, precious time (Golden Hour) is
lost in travel.
To provide immediate
care to its retired employees in ‘Golden Hour’ Railway Board has decided to
roll out a “Cashless treatment Scheme in Emergency’ (CTSE), in empanelled
hospitals, for retired employees and their dependent family members. A web
based system of communication between private hospitals and railway authorities
has been developed wherein identity of the beneficiary shall be established
using biometrics stored in Aadhar (UIDAI) server, eligibility shall be
determined using Railway Data Base and emergency shall be verified by Railway
Medical Officer based on private hospital’s clinical report. The whole system
is online and even the bill processing shall be online. This scheme shall
provide help and succor to the retired railway employees at the time of need
and at the same time will have a morale boosting effect on the serving
employees.
The Scheme fulfils both
the avowed objectives of the GOI; utilizing IT tools to cut the red-tape and
promoting cashless transactions.
Rather than creating a
separate time and resource consuming vertical the scheme has used the existing
resources by bringing on board the UIDAI and ARPAN database. Railway has not
incurred any capital expenditure on the scheme, M/s UTIITSL has developed the
software in consultation with Railway and shall be paid on per bill processed
basis. The online processing will ensure swifter disposal of bills in a
transparent manner.
At present the scheme
has been rolled out in four metro cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai,
based on the experience of this pilot the scheme may be extended to the whole
of country.
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AKS/MKV/ENS
