Indian Railways : A Trillion Dollar Opportunity

That was the name of a Conference held in Mumbai , on 03 Sept 2016

Railway Minister , Shri Suresh Prabhu , wants businesses and Agencies ( both , national and international ) , to invest billions of dollars in modernizing the Indian Railways

These " modernizations " include :

#    High speed Trains

#    Rolling Stock

#    Railway Station Development

#    Signaling and Structural Development....etc

How about making this an " Opportunity to save 15,000 lives " ? ( Number of persons getting run-over by trains each year in India )

On the tracks of Mumbai local trains alone , some 3,000 + persons get run over each year , while crossing

Just the day before the Conference , as many as 18 persons got run over in a single day !

Provision of overhead bridges has not helped . Temptation to catch a train is too much when time is short  !

Perhaps sub-conscious thinking of people who cross the track , goes :

" Of the 100,000 persons who cross the tracks daily, only 10 die. My probability of getting hit is only 1 in 10,000 ! "

But what if that probability was 1 in 1 ( 100 % certainty ) ?

Like a 11KV current flowing in the tracks ?  You dare to cross , you die ! No one will dare !

No , please don't get me wrong ! I am NOT suggesting anything sinister like that ! ( anything like replacing those pellet guns in Kashmir with AK 47 assault rifles )

What I am suggesting is a " Digital Death " for the trespassers !

For today's generation , as real as " Physical Death " - or worse !

Mobile phone ( smart phone or feature phone ) of the person crossing , to get " fried / killed " , electronically !

By an innovative application of a " Controlled EMP ( Electro-Magnetic Pulse ) " , surging through the tracks , once every second - low voltage but strong enough to kill the onboard solid state circuitry of the mobile phone

This low voltage magnetic wave , will neither harm the human carrying the phone in his pocket , nor kill the phones of those travelling in the train , due to " Skin Effect "

Even though, a " Low Voltage EMP " , is an oxymoron , I am sure Indian Scientists are quite capable to resolve this apparent paradox , if challenged

Shri Prabhu-ji  :

In your Rail Budget speech, you had said :

" A single accident or loss of a single life causes me great sorrow and anguish. It also demonstrates that we still have a long way to go in realizing our objective of a zero accident regime. Although our safety record is better at 20% lower accidents compared to the previous year, there is much more that is required to be done. I truly believe that the way forward to eliminate accidents from IR is through adoption and assimilation of latest technology. "

Instead of , always trying to " adopt and assimilate " technologies developed abroad , please consider " Evolving " of a technology locally for your goal of " Zero Accident Regime "

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04  Sept  2016

www.hemenparekh.in / blogs