IRISET celebrates its 67th Annual Day

Hyderabad: Indian Railways Institute of Signal Engineering & Telecommunications, IRISET celebrated its 67th Annual Day on Sunday. IRISET imparts training to newly recruited officers & supervisors, in-service personnel and executives of public & private companies.

The Institute has imparted training to a record number of 5,195 trainees by conducting 221 training courses this year with productivity of 74,800 trainee days. The Institute is accredited as Excellent training institute by Capacity Building Commission of Department of Personnel & Training this year.

The annual report was presented by Sharad Kumar Srivastava, Director General of the Institute. Training programs on Kavach - National Automatic Train Protection System, are the flagship programs of the Institute. The Institute has commenced training on Kavach to new groups of trainees such as Electric Loco Shed supervisors and Mechanical officers alongside the usual trainees from Signalling & Telecommunications, Traffic and Electrical streams. The Institute trained 1014 personnel on Kavach through 45 programs. The Institute has signed MoUs with 3 Universities & Engineering colleges to offer open electives on Railway Signalling and Kavach for B.Tech students. Workshops and customised training programs for target sections of senior executives involved in deployment of this technology and faculty development programs for professors of Engineering colleges were conducted as capacity building measures. Centre of excellence (CoE) established in the Institute has played pivotal role in issuing technical advisories and on-site training to gross-root personnel. CoE has developed uniform braking algorithm to standardize braking performance of locomotives fitted with Kavach and designed training content on Kavach technology for different target groups.

S K Srivastava highlighted the swift action of the Institute to conduct 11 special training programs on Railway Signalling and Kavach for 877 Chief Loco Inspectors in a short span of time this year. The Institute laid emphasis on attaining self-reliance in the new technologies like Electronic Interlocking, Automatic Block Signalling using Digital Axle Counters, IP-MPLS (Internet Protocol – Multi Protocol Label Switching), LTE (Long Term Evolution) mobile wireless broadband communication technology and open source Asterisk based VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) exchanges. The Institute has conducted courses on maintenance & troubleshooting and design modifications of the equipment. The Institute also encourages training of the executives of private industry associated with infrastructure creation on Railway technologies. The Institute has revised the curriculum of training programs suitable to the technology upgradation in the organization and designed suitable learning resources. The institute has established 5G test bed in collaboration with IIT Madras during the year. The Institute has set up laboratories on IPMPLS and LTE technologies for hands-on training.

While delivering the key note address on the occasion, Dr. Radha Krishna Ganti, Professor of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras, emphasized the need to rope in students of Engineering colleges into Railway Signalling technologies to enhance capacity. Narrating the story of development of indigenous telecom standards, 5G technologies, products and Government support; Dr Radha Krishna advocated S&T engineers to work towards developing standards and indigenous technologies. He mentioned that the complexities of problems may be challenging, but involving people and bringing synergy among various groups working on the solutions will yield fruitful results for the country. He underlined the need to work with startups for finding long lasting solutions to meet the requirements of the organization. Dr Radha Krishna advised IRISET to use AI technologies and ChatGPT to enhance learning experience for new generations.

Arun Kumar Jain, General Manager, South Central Railway, who presided over the function urged the Institute take initiatives on multi skilling of the work force and imparting skills on improving reliability of Signalling and Telecommunications assets on Indian Railways. He emphasized on the need to upgrade training programs to improve productivity and enhance safety in train operations. He advised IRISET to liaison with industry and Zonal Railways to work out solutions to bridge skill gaps and overcome the challenges posed by multiple fast changing technologies. He underscored the necessity to upgrade training programs to build capabilities to design and execute infrastructure works at fast pace to ease out bottlenecks in the train operations. Arun Kumar Jain presented the academic excellence awards to 12 trainees on this occasion.

Vijaylaxmi Kaushik, Additional Member (Signal), Railway Board addressed the gathering and urged S&T engineers to get skills required for effective deployment of technologies matching unprecedented capital expenditure on infrastructure creation and maintenance. She advised IRISET to design training programs to enable new recruits embrace safety in train operations as an attitude and characteristic of their working. Shri Sameer Dikshit, Additional Member (Telecom), Railway Board emphasized the need to find innovative solutions and create an enabling environment for excellence to meet the expectations of the country. Technical magazine Gyandeep was also released on this occasion. A colorful cultural programme followed the event.

In the earlier part of the day, a technical workshop was conducted on modern technologies – Digital twin, ATP (Automatic Train Protection) implementation, Futuristic Telecom technologies and Safety assessment protocols with speakers from industry, academia and Zonal Railways. The institute has also set up exhibition stalls with products of Signalling and Telecommunication systems and upcoming developments. Senior officers from all Zonal Railways and Railway Board graced these events.