The Hindu : National : Pitroda wants Railways to unlock value of its assets

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Aug 25, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

National

National

Pitroda wants Railways to unlock value of its assets

K. Balchand

NEW DELHI: Even as the Railways is debating how best to use its optical fibre cable network to rake in revenue, former chairman of the National Knowledge Commission, Sam Pitroda suggested that it first needs to unlock the value of its assets and modernise itself before trying to become a major player in the broadband sector.

Mr. Pitroda was speaking at the International Railway Conference, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry. He has been nominated by the Railway Minister to head the committee to draw up a scheme to utilise the Railways’ massive optical fibre network.

He suggested that the Railways use the optical fibre for ticketing, freight management, modernisation of trains and organising vendors utilising information technology so that they could be connected through the web. Then use it to provide connectivity to people in railway stations. Besides that, he said, it had to look into the potential of using air space over its lines, drawing inspiration from the example in Chicago, where parks had been set up.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National