# Railways Shuts Down IIT Kanpur’s Rs 100 Crore Simran Project



## KDroid (Oct 6, 2012)

> Earlier Indian Railways partnered with IIT Kanpur on a Satellite Imaging for Rail Navigation (Simran) which was meant to help passengers know the exact position of a train via Global Position System and digital mapping of stations is now reportedly shutdown due to lack of funds.*www.100marks.in/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/simran_thumb.jpg
> “Railways has scrapped the service of Satellite Imaging for Rail Navigation (SIMRAN), an ambitious project of Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. Though, we requested Railway board to continue it but no response was received from them”, Said Registrar, IIT, Kanpur RK Sachan .
> The ambitious Rs 100 Crore project was under pilot with several trains including Rajdhani and Shatabdi and was integrated with Google maps; but the project has now been shut down owing to lack of funds



Source


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## Flash (Oct 6, 2012)

I like the name - _Satellite Imaging for Rail Navigation *(Simran)
*_The train is never going to reach the station on time, so whats the use of GPS? 

Indian Railways should enhance/maintain the current infrastructure well.
For foreigners entering India via train, the first disappointment will be the ill-maintained stations + its bathrooms.


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## RCuber (Oct 6, 2012)

Lack of Funds eh? .. .. a GPS tracker costs 10-20K thats all  .. we used to track 100 vehicles using a Rs. 40K computer  apparently ..  and you dont even need to buy software .. there are open source tracking application available  ..


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## dalbir (Oct 6, 2012)

I think it was a nice project for the passengers and the Railways.
They must proceed as they will earn a great revenue from this too.


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## d6bmg (Oct 6, 2012)

Lack of funds.


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## Flash (Oct 7, 2012)

Our govt is like our people.
Some don't even know there are open-source-alternatives available for certain things!


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## gameranand (Oct 7, 2012)

Well if they knew then Linux would be very popular in India by now.


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## havoknation (Oct 7, 2012)

Soon there will be one more scam addition in our history.. 100Crore SIMRAN SCAM by so and so minister


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## ritvij (Oct 7, 2012)

lack of funds in India?? impossible...


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## Flash (Oct 7, 2012)

havoknation said:


> Soon there will be one more scam addition in our history.. 100Crore SIMRAN SCAM by so and so minister



Anyway, SIMRAN is scrapped now!


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## spacescreamer (Oct 7, 2012)

Gearbox said:


> I like the name - _Satellite Imaging for Rail Navigation *(Simran)
> *_The train is never going to reach the station on time, so whats the use of GPS?



A GPS tracking system IS the thing to use in case of Delayed trains.

What else will you do with trains or any public transport which is going to arrive on time..? Use the tracking to see its punctuality in milliseconds..?
A tracking system will enable waiting passengers to see where the delayed train is, so as to make arrangements/calculations for any other alternative or for rescheduling purposes.


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## Flash (Oct 7, 2012)

Oh. Is it? Its not about the punctuality, but the feasibility!
GPS is not the only thing for alternative/rescheduling purpose of a delayed train!


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## root.king (Oct 8, 2012)

spacescreamer said:


> A GPS tracking system IS the thing to use in case of Delayed trains.
> 
> What else will you do with trains or any public transport which is going to arrive on time..? Use the tracking to see its punctuality in milliseconds..?
> A tracking system will enable waiting passengers to see where the delayed train is, so as to make arrangements/calculations for any other alternative or for rescheduling purposes.



Not only for punctuality but also it stops the railways accidents.


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## d6bmg (Oct 8, 2012)

gameranand said:


> Well if they knew then Linux would be very popular in India by now.




On the downside, you can't run crossfire and SLi flawlessly with any distro.


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## ssdivisiongermany1933 (Oct 8, 2012)

insufficient funds ......ROFL 

Increase fare by 1/2 percent for a month  ,Railways can  have more than sufficient funds  . The babus can also take away some money with them to home and also No Mamata deewar


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## gopi_vbboy (Oct 9, 2012)

railways is busy looting in tatkal but cant spend some money on passenger safety...sad..


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## raghupratap (Oct 23, 2012)

100 crores, and still the wheel has NOT been reinvented? 

Only in India!


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## billmaster (Oct 23, 2012)

ritvij said:


> lack of funds in India?? impossible...


Lack of funds in India, all is gone to the Swiss! lol!


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## CyberKID (Nov 28, 2012)

It's not the lack of funds, it's an utter wastage of the taxpayer's money. The project was of Rs. 100 Crores, out of which, a few would have already been wasted. Now they are crying about lack of funds. Why the hell they started a project like this when they were not sure about the budgetary requirements, wasting crores of taxpayer's money, valuable time of IIT Kanpur's students and faculty and then ultimately scrapping the project?
As far as using GPS trackers to maintain an exact location of the train, IMO, it's quite possible with a technology as simple as Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID). Railways already has a large network of communication systems running up along the tracks. Being from a Geography background, and whatever I've studied and know about Global Positioning System (GPS) and the Geographic Information Systems (GIS), it's not that easy and reliable to make use of GPS and GIS technologies in such scenarios where climatic conditions can drastically affect the usability of it. We as a country, so much advanced into Rocket science and Satellite Technology, haven't been able to put up our own Global Positioning System, and still depending upon the American and Russian GPS systems.


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## colenz (Dec 11, 2012)

SIMRAN Not All Roses With Discord Between Railways and IIT Kanpur...


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## navpreetsingh459 (Dec 12, 2012)

All I can say is that they have given a nice excuse and we can't say anything on this now..Lack of fund? 
Where is all money going?? 
Can anyone tell me....


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## avinandan012 (Dec 12, 2012)

nah!! One hundred Crore scam coming up


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## rohit32407 (Dec 12, 2012)

Maybe lack of funds for some other purposes if you know what i mean


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## Skud (Dec 12, 2012)

Gearbox said:


> Our govt is like our people.
> Some don't even know there are open-source-alternatives available for certain things!





gameranand said:


> Well if they knew then Linux would be very popular in India by now.




Problem is not the knowledge of Govt/people but the tender process for the sake of transparency. Vendors are not forthcoming with OSS/Linux solutions, may be due to lack knowledge/support on their part, or may be some other reasons. And OSS is not really the cure all of all problems, read this:-

One German city drops OpenOffice for MS Office: Why 'open source' still fails to impress


Last year, we had a policy of deploying Ubuntu Linux for at least 10% of new PCs purchased. This year that policy was scrapped as the HRMS software which is to be deployed is offered for Windows only by the vendor.


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