Global players including Alstom, Siemens, Hitachi, Stadler Rail, Wabtec and Arco have evinced interest in developing a new locomotive facility for the Indian Railways at an estimated investment of Rs 20,000 crore in Dahod, Gujarat.

Indian Railways will invest more than Rs 50 crore annually to fund startups, informed Union Ministry. Unlike other such collaborations, the intellectual property rights (IPR) for innovations will remain with the innovator.

The Indian Railways will soon be installing display screens at foot-over bridges, platforms, waiting rooms, and concourses at railway stations. The display screens referred to as Railway Display Network (RDN) will be installed by RailTel under the RDN Project for the Indian Railways.

The government is planning to strengthen Indian Railways infrastructure and has stressed on commissioning a total of 14 critical coal-evacuation railway projects for faster transportation of fuel, as higher prices of fuel are likely to put pressure on the national transporter for transportation of domestic coal.

The Indian Railways has drawn up a Rs 34,000 crore safety upgrade of its network that involves deployment of an automatic train protection system - Kavach. Plans for the deployment of the system along 34,000 route km have been included in the railway works programme of 2020-21 and 2021-22.

Niti Aayog has prepared a draft policy for the Indian Railways to set up electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure at railway stations across the country, in a bid to promote the use of such vehicles.

The company has won an order from Indian Railways for supply of coach air-conditioners in a recently concluded tender. It is already a supplier of rail driver cabin air-conditioning system and with this, it will complete the scope of air conditioning for rail driver cabin and coaches.

The Railways has launched a bridge project in Manipur which is part of the 111-km Jiribam-Imphal railway line to connect Imphal, the capital of Manipur, with the broad-gauge network of the country. The bridge, being built at a pier height of 141 m, will surpass the existing record of 139 m of the Mala-Rijeka viaduct, Montenegro, in Europe.

India’s first bullet train is likely to run between Surat and Bilimora by 2026. The Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project was supposed to be completed by 2023 and the trial run for the Surat-Bilimora stretch started in 2022. But due to hurdles in land acquisition and Covid-19, the project has been delayed.