Novel approach for Smart Indian Railways

Indian railways being one of the largest railway networks operating over 1,015,000 km carrying more than 22 million passengers a day spends more than 94,000cr for efficient functioning. From recent proposal for smart cities, Railways are projected as ‘India's Growth engine’ and with the current trend moving towards digitalization, Smart railways are the need of the hour. Of the 94,000cr spent, an exorbitant pay-out of 23,500cr is spent on paper, which can be subsidized using efficient alternative techniques. Smartphone having a profound influence on the daily routine of people, it can be utilized for paperless ticket travel. Verification of Identification proofs for 22 million people during their travel per day demands great human resource and all these can be simplified digitally by linking application with the aadhar card database. Indian Railways harvests a revenue of ₹1.6345 trillion per annum. With local trains contributing a major share towards this revenue, considering the fact, that there are people who travel without tickets. This proposal will also be helpful in cracking down those who travel in such a bogus manner. With the execution of this novel approach, Indian railways will be able to implement Smart Railways and efficient verification techniques.