768 start-ups register to participate in railway infrastructure: Govt

Five months after it launched a policy to incentivise startup participation in rail infrastructure, the ministry of railways has received 768 startup registrations on its innovation portal.

“Till now, 13 innovation challenges have been uploaded against which good response in the form of 311 offers have been received.  All the offers are being evaluated through a two-stage process and one innovation challenge has already been finalized,” the ministry said.

The offers have come from 123 startups, 80 individual innovators, 81 micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and 18 research and development organisations and institutes.

Currently, railways is evaluating proposals on solutions for freight wagons, while various other proposals are also under processing. The policy was launched to incentivise technology-led modernisation and open the railway industry to emerging startups, as mostly large infrastructure players dominate this space. The current policy is a pilot programme by the ministry with a modest outlay of Rs 50 crore. 

Moreover, the national transporter is constantly engaging with startups through workshops as well. The ministry said that it has conducted 131 workshops so far, which have seen participation from over 1500 startups.

The policy allowed for infusion of Rs 1.5 crore of seed investments for successful proposals, along with support from the railways. Additionally, the intellectual property rights (IPR) remain with the innovators who’ve designed the technology.