Need for benchmarking best engineering practices: Prabhu

Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu today underlined the need for benchmarking the best practices in the engineering sector and integrating these into the railway system.
"Engineering sector is crucial for Railways and there are challenges of technology upgrading," he said at the national technical seminar organised by the Institution of Permanent Way Engineers here.
The seminar is organised every year to have an effective exchange of knowledge and experience about the latest technological developments concerning railway track, bridges and structures.
Acknowledging the need for improvement, Prabhu said, "The question is how one can improve upon? We should benchmark best practices in India and abroad and integrate the same into our system."

This year, the seminar focused on issues such as increase of speed on existing railway routes, Metro system design, standards, construction and maintenance and rail and weld management.
"One of the subjects of the seminar namely Rail Weld Management is very important and we have to work towards minimising cases of rail fractures and weld fractures as far as possible to ensure safety in railway operation," Prabhu said.
The seminar will come up with suggestions and we should find mechanisms to integrate them in day-to-day functioning, he said.
Referring to engineering marvel undertaken by Railways in the past like Konkan Railways, Jammu and Kashmir railway project, he said skill upgrade should be a continuous process and effort should be made to lower the cost of projects.