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      <p><strong>W E B I N A R</strong></p>
      <p><strong>&nbsp;COVID19 - Impact &amp; Changing Role of Railways</strong></p>
      <p>May 9, 2020</p>
      <p ><strong><u>Brief Report</u></strong></p>
      <p style="text-align:justify;">ASSOCHAM organized a Webinar on COVID19 - Impact &amp; Changing Role of Railways on May 9, 2020.</strong><strong> The welcome address was delivered by Dr. A K Agarwal, Chairman, River Engineering Pvt. Ltd. Shri Manoj Kumar, VP &amp; Director &ndash; Sales &amp; Projects, Hitachi Rail STS shared the Industry perspective and Key Address was delivered by Shri Arunendra Kumar, Former Chairman, Railway Board. Other key Panelists included &nbsp;</strong><strong>Shri S P Vavre, Principal Chief Electrical Engineer, Central Railway, and Shri Ghanshyam Singh, Former Member &ndash; Traction, Railway Board.</p>
     
      <p style="text-align:justify;">Discussions were focused on the post COVID-19 opportunities in Railways. Dr. A K Agarwal mentioned that &ldquo;the railway is generally earns its revenue from Passenger and Freight but this crisis has brought another opportunity and learning through Healthcare,&nbsp;Indian railways can think of well-equipped medical coaches in every passenger train&rdquo;. </strong></p>
      <p style="text-align:justify;"><strong>Shri S P Vavre mentioned that &ldquo;the Indian economy is three trillion dollars and continuing for the achievement of newer heights. Railways is moving fast, going ahead with challenges, resilient organization, and lifeline of the country. It is flexible and challenging the train transportation of grains, fertilizers, medical requirements to all parts of the Country&rdquo;. </p>

      <p style="text-align:justify;">Shri Ghanshyam Singh highlighted that &ldquo;now considering the size of India we must appreciate that our government authority, our colleagues in the government have managed the Corona pandemic very effectively and in a very well manner. At least I could not believe that our policemen will stand in the grassroots to guard us round the clock, but they have stood even at the cost of their lives. Railways have played a very vital role in dealing with the corona pandemic under the great visionary leadership of Hon&rsquo;ble Minister of Railways and it came to the forefront to convert the coaches as mobile quarantine centres and mobile hospital units and as I know as of now they have converted approx 5000 coaches into a quarantine centre medical hospital&rdquo;. He said that &ldquo;due to this pandemic </strong><strong>time tables for goods and passenger trains may change&rdquo;.</p>

      <p style="text-align:justify;"><strong>He also added, &ldquo;In the new Covid 19 scenario, there is a need for passenger coaches design for social distancing, thermal screening of passengers for monitoring the temperature of person. There will be a requirement of oxygen cylinders and guard for cleaning and onboard maintenance. Catering is the important segment for serving food to passengers with care of hygiene and safety. The material is required for sanitization and cleaning the coaches. For the electrical department, there is a need for loco cab improvement for Loco Pilots and Assistant Loco Pilots as there is less space for sanitizing the facility. The industry should come with a technology for providing more space in the cabin. The crew transportation is very important as the requirement to run the train safely and provide confidence to other loco pilots. For maintenance of the locomotives, the manpower is to be reduced by having a modular maintenance system that is self-diagnostic. For traction converters, there can be remote operations to be provided by OEM.&rdquo;</strong></p>

      <p style="text-align:justify;"><strong>The product supplier should provide after-sales service to the Railways other than AMCs, warranty and liability services. In the future, there is a need for mechanizing the systems. O</strong><strong>ur stations have to be reoriented in the lines of airport security checks and the word security checks have to be replaced by the word medical check-ups. On the railway platforms, only those will be allowed to enter who have valid tickets and found medically fit.</strong></p>

      <p style="text-align:justify;"><strong>Post COVID-19 Railway stations should be modified, workplaces should be modified, &nbsp;all persons entering workplaces&nbsp;will be screened, that will scan the temperature of all the persons entering their workplaces. We should connect this temperature scanning machine or equipment with Artificial intelligence and provide such kind of equipment at our every place where there is a possibility of a large number of people coming. With this system of scanning the face of the person and the use of IT tools and Artificial Intelligence, we can filter out those persons who are likely to get infected by COVID-19 or any other infection. This type of innovative approach may be perhaps required in the train.</strong></p>
     
      <p style="text-align:justify;"><strong>During the interactive session, the distinguished panel of speakers also took questions from the participants. </strong></p>
     
      <p style="text-align:justify;"><strong>The Webinar was attended by 300 representatives of the industry.</strong></p>
    
     
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