MOU – between DFCCIL and IISc for development of MVIS
DFCCIL team visited all the state of art labs of IISc and explored potential areas of co-operation in the field of Rail innovation where the two giants of India can produce synergy for the progress of the nation
L. C. Trivedi
March the 22nd of 2022 will go down in the history as a golden day for the indigenous technology development in the area of Rail Technology, when MOU was signed between Dedicated Freight corridor corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) for development of Machine Vision based Inspection System (MVIS) for rolling stock.
DFCCIL has commissioned 1000+km of route where freight trains are achieving an average speed of 60 kmph which is the average speed of express trains in Indian Railways.
In fact DFCCIL has set a record on few occasions achieving average speeds of 100 kmph which is the average speed at which Rajdhani runs. In fact average of speed of goods trains on IR is a pathetic 15 kmph.
This tremendous success has been accompanied by more stress on rolling stock, which has resulted in few unsafe incidents. DFCCIL provides infrastructure for running of freight trains, it however doesn’t own any rolling stock. It is therefore essential for smooth running of this system that a dependable machine based inspection of rolling stock at cardinal points is carried out.
IISc promoted start up christened L2MRail (Lab to Market) in which a part of equity is held by IISc will carry out the work. In fact as I understand close to 50 such startups have been promoted by IISc in it’s quest to serve nation in the field of promoting indigenous technology in critical areas of country’s needs.
Prof Sinha – an ex IISc professor – and Mr Srinivas Rao – an ex Railway officer – are the co-founders of this startup. Zest of both of them to pursue their objectives is to be seen to be believed.
Mr R. K. Jain, CMD/DFCCIL personally came with his team of directors to witness MOU signing event. Mr Srinivas Director operations, Mr H M Gupta Director infra, Mr Hiraballabh Director finance, Mr Jayant GM and other were present. DFCCIL team visited all the state of art labs of IISc and explored potential areas of co-operation in the field of Rail innovation where the two giants of India can produce synergy for the progress of the nation.
Prof Govindrajan Director IISc personally witnessed MOU signing ceremony and encouraged those present. Prof Gurumoorthy chief executive of society for innovation development of IISc, Founders of L2M And team members and entire Board of DFCCIL was present.
Earlier in the day Heads of departments of NANO technology, Robotics, Drones, 5G, etc took team of DFCCIL through various labs who all are engaged in path breaking research in their respective fields.
It was an eye opener to learn that BOEING company of USA the leading aircraft manufacturer heavily sources its technology upgradation needs from IISc.
I was fortunate to have facilitated the event as I had contacts with either side of signatories and was witness to the historical event.
#aatmnirbharbharat #railways #startupindia #dfccil #iisc #mvis
Source: