Infosys bags railways' pilot project worth 4 Crore

Bangalore: Infosys Technologies has bagged a pilot project to roll out an Integrated Coach Management System (ICMS) for the Indian Railways. Infosys is rolling out the ICMS in three different locations, including Waltair (Visakhapatnam), Khurda Road and Sambalpur in Orissa, with the cost expected to be around 3.5-4 crore. Based on the success of the pilot project, the government will plan to roll out ICMS in about 50-60 different centres and coaching depots in the country by the end of the current fiscal.

Even though the initial (pilot) project cost is small, the success of the pilot will determine the time-frame as to when the railways will go in for floating the final tender for the project, which is estimated to be about 210 crore. An industry source told Business Standard, "However, based on their competitive pricing and the first mover's advantage, Infosys will definitely be a preferred vendor for the project, as and when the railways decides to implement the project."

The ICMS is likely to use multiple technology stacks, including GPS, RFID and ERP to track the maintenance of coaches on regular basis. The system will have three different modules, including punctuality, stock and time-tabling. The stock module will monitor each coach, ranging from running of trains to undertaking of periodic maintenance, while the punctuality module aims at monitoring running of coaching trains as per schedule. By using the tabling module, the railways management can also identify various other areas of improvement, like introduction of new trains and extension of existing trains.

In the last one year, Infosys bagged three projects in the government sector in the country. Earlier, the company had bagged a project to set up and manage a Central Processing Centre (CPC) for the income tax department and a project from the Ministry of Commerce to develop an eBiz portal that will help in providing one-stop services to the industry.