SCR invites T-Hub for Startups for Railways initiative

Hyderabad: With an aim to develop solutions for some of the critical areas of Indian Railways, the South Central Railways has invited T-Hub with regard to the Startups for Railways initiative. The SCR general manager Arun Kumar Jain met T-Hub CEO M Srinivas Rao and his team for the same. Indian Railways has introduced this novel concept to promote participation of emerging entrepreneurs in solving some of the critical areas of Indian Railways, a press release said.

With the objective of harnessing these growing technological advancements in the startup ecosystem and to promote participation of emerging entrepreneurs to address quality, reliability and maintainability-related issues of the Indian Railways, the Ministry of Railways have launched a unique initiative namely, ‘Startups for Railways’.

As part of the initiative, Indian Railways has identified 11 critical areas wherein solutions from the Startups are being invited and this number will be progressively increased over a period of time. The Indian Railways has set aside a seed fund of Rs 1.5 crore to be given by the Railway Board to the startups. The funding scheme will be on a cost sharing basis in equal proportion, between Indian Railways and Startup/MSME/Innovator/Entrepreneur.

Under the policy, the Startup/MSME/Innovator/Entrepreneur will have exclusive ownership of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) created in the project. A structured timeline framework has also been laid down so as to ensure speedy implementation of the projects showing potential.