THERE is a fierce war in the Ministry of Railways over selection of a
telecom network model for the much-needed Modernisation of Signalling and
Telecom Project. The plan is to go in for European Train Control System (ETCS)
Level 2. The war is among 2G and 4G network suppliers. Railway Minister Piyush
Goel has called three presentations in which Thales, Siemens, Alstom, Hitachi,
Bombardier and Ansaldo, Nokia, Ericsson, and Kapsch (represented by Vista)
presented their case. The meeting was moderated by E&Y and was also
attended by the Minister of State for Railways and the Railway Board Chairman
Ashwani Lohani. Sources disclosed that it was decided to use Long Term
Evaluation (4G) as the telecom technology for this project despite the fact
that it was pointed out during the meeting that there is no live reference of
LTE usage for ETCS Level 2. This took Piyush Goel by surprise and he asked if
this was true. Two people pointed out that it was not true: DG-Safety &T of
Railways said the same has been done in China and Korea while and an Alstom
representative mentioned that they had done a project in Australia. Goel said
he would get the same checked. Sources have informed gfiles that no such
project has been done in China and Korea and in Australia, a 11 km pilot
project has been undertaken. Let us remember that the 162-year-old Indian
railway system has more than 60,000 km (40,000 miles) of track on which ETCS
level 2 is to be implemented. Meanwhile, a budget of Rs 79,000 crore has been
approved for the same. The Modi Government is keen to showcase this as one of
its major achievements during the 2019 election but actually Finance Minister
Arun Jaitely has sanctioned peanuts for this mega project. Piyush Goel is now
reportedly looking for financiers for this project.
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