JICA to share Japanese expertise in track maintenance, rail welding with IR

Japanese expertise in indicator-based methods and ultrasonic detection will be shared with India for track maintenance and rail welding, as part of coordination between the Railway Ministry and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, JICA said a statement Monday.

Japanese expertise in indicator-based methods and ultrasonic detection will be shared with India for track maintenance and rail welding, as part of coordination between the Railway Ministry and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, JICA said in a statement Monday. JICA and the Railways held a meeting for technical cooperation projects of capacity development on railway safety to discuss the progress till now and future activities.

This project, being jointly implemented by India and Japan, commenced in December 2018 and is expected to result in enhancing capacities of the Railways' Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited and Commission of Railway Safety. Last year, before the Covid-19 outbreak, JICA, which is funding the ambitious bullet train project between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, invited Indian officials to training programs in Japan on track and rolling stock maintenance, rail welding, and accident investigation.

"At the JCC meeting, the current progress of safety action plans being implemented based on learning from training programs in Japan and future action plans were discussed. Especially, methods of track maintenance and rail welding were intensively discussed. As a consequence, a part of future activities for Track Maintenance, Japanese experts will support the Indian side to prepare a guideline on the adoption of indicator-based management methodologies by using an Irregularity Measurement Device. "In the field of Rail Welding, Japanese experts will support the Indian side to improve manuals and regulations to focus on ultrasonic detection method (double-probe method). Indian and Japanese sides have also agreed to extend the cooperation period of this TC Project for around one year from October 2020 to December 2021 with an aim at further enhancing railway safety in India," the statement said.

The JCC was co-chaired by Rajiv Chaudhry, General Manager, Northern Railway and the Project Director of the TC Project and Nagai Shinsuke, Senior Representative of JICA, India, along with Dr. Makoto Ishida, Chief Advisor of the TC Project and Dr. Fuminao Okumura, JICA Expert on Railway Safety Policy (Member, Japan Transport Safety Board, Government of Japan.) “JICA expert team and Indian officials have been communicating and keeping on-line discussion about the safety action plan even under the current situation by Covid-19pandemic. At this JCC meeting, the Japanese and Indian sides have reached the agreement to extend our cooperation project for around one more year to fully utilize the learnings earned from the training programs conducted in Japan last year. It is hoped that this technical cooperation project would contribute to bringing the safe environment in India and future action plans would be functionally implemented to promote safe operations and appropriate maintenance in Indian Railway,” said Shinsuke.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)