Important Events in CRIS

July 1, 2010 - CRIS Symposium
A Symposium on the topic "IT can Happen in Government" was held on July 1, 2010 at the Stein Auditorium, Indian Habitat Centre, New Delhi. The key note speaker was Shri Nandan Nilekani, Chairman, UIDAI. Other distinguished speakers included Dr Gulshan Rai, DG Cert-in, Shri R. S. Sharma, MD, UIDAI, Shri Kiran Karnik, former President, Nasscom, and Shri Rajiv Kumar, CE, ICRIER. The deliberations focused on all aspects of IT in Government. The topics for discussion included "Custody of Information", "Design of Contracts", "Partnerships with Industry", "Implementation of IT systems", and "Human Resources for IT in Government".

The sessions were attended by more than 400 delegates from CRIS, Railway Board, Northern Railway, other Railways and Railway organisations, Ministry of IT, NCRB, ISRO, UPSC, and other organisations from Government, the public sector, and the private sector.

A webcast of the Symposium can be seen  here 

April 20, 2010 - PRS get Web Ratna 09 in Citizen Centric Category
PRS get Web Ratna 09 in Citizen Centric Category

Indian Railway Passenger Reservation System website (http://indianrail.gov.in/) adjudged Platinum Icon, Web Ratna-2009 award in Citizen-Centric Category

Click Here to download the case study.

September 14,2009 - Documentary on UTS and UTN on DD - National 
Documentary on UTS & UTN

A doumentary film on "UTS and Unified Ticketing Network (UTN) will be telecast under the "e-kranti" programme on Monday, the 21th sept. 2009 at 7.15 p.m. , on DD National - Delhi Channel.

September 4,2009 - CIO Green Edge Award

CIO Green Edge Award

CRIS datacenter has been now recognised as a green data center at National Level by CIO group on 4 Sep 2009 at GOA. The award was received by Surekha Sahu during this event. The award "CIO Green Edge Award" which was given to 5 IT companies who are the the pioneers of Green IT practices in India. CRIS has demonstrated it's concern for the environment by deploying technologies that lowered power consumption and decreased their organizations' carbon footprint.

July 6,2009 - CRIS Symposium

CRIS Symposium 09

Symposium Programme:

09.00	Welcome & Inaugural Address	Shri Madhav Pathak, MD / CRIS
09.40	Keynote Address by	Shri. N.C. Gupta
10.00	Smart & Secure Railways	Aravind Sitaraman, Vice President & Managing Director, Cisco Development Organization
10.25	On Track for a smarter Railway	Dr. Manish Gupta, Associate Director, IBM Research India
10.50	Next Generation Technology for Railways	Sundar Ram, Vice President, Technology Sales Consulting, Oracle APAC.
11.15	Connected Rail Vision	Stephen R. Du Mont, Global Managing Director, Internet Business Solutions Group Cisco Systems, Inc.
12.05	Cyber Security and Critical Information Infrastructure	Dr. Gulshan Rai, Director. Cert-In, Min. of Communications and IT
12.30	Green IT	Sudhir Rao, Infrastructure Practice Head, HP
12.55	Cloud Computing	Anand Ramakrishnan, Head Cloud Computing, Wipro Ltd. (Infotech)
13.20	Building the future with Mobility & mCommerce	Sudesh Prabhu , Director/ Technical Sales, Sybase
13.45	Transforming Enterprise IT Management	Amit Chatterjee, Vice President and MD, CA
14.05	Concluding session	Dr. R. Badrinarayan, GM/R&D/CRIS

 

 September 26 , 2008 - CIO 100 Bold award to CMS

 CIO 100 Bold award to CMS

Matter for Press Release

Indian Railways has once again shown its strength in Information Technology. IT applications powered by the Center for Railway Information Systems continue to win prestigious awards. The calendar year of 2008 began with the Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) being awarded the Prime Ministers Award for Excellence in Public Delivery Systems. The award was a recognition of the effort to take IT benefits to the lower strata of society. On an average about 16 million passengers travel daily on what are referred to as unreserved tickets. The UTS provides 24x7 computerized ticketing to these passengers which includes the suburban traveller, the inter district traveller and the migrant worker travelling between his rural home and urban dwelling. Close on the heels of this came the IBM Beacon Award Finalist for another stellar application developed by CRIS for e-Working in the category of Innovation Excellence in Government. This application also received the Global Public Sector Top Star Award for 2008 in a function held at Los Angeles earlier this year.

At the CIO 100 conference being held in Jaipur, CRIS will be presented with the CIO 100 Bold Award. The Award is for the Crew Management System developed for Indian Railways. The project head Mr. Deepak Ganju, General Manager, CRIS will receive the CIO 100 Award. CIO magazine has a tradition of honouring technology leadership and is an acknowledged mark of enterprise IT excellence. The Crew Management System as the name implies has been developed to manage the crew members responsible for operation of trains – drivers and guards. The Indian Railways have nearly one lakh drivers and guards. The software solution automates their day-to-day business functions by providing complete information. The system provides information on the availability of crew, assists in assigning crew to trains, and helps in optimal utilization of crew. The transparency that the system offers leads to better industrial relations. The software system was rolled out in December 2007 and already 1250 data entry nodes at over 172 crew booking points have been commissioned. These crew booking points where the crews are assigned their trains, are located on 9 different Zonal Railways mainly covering the Central, Western and Northern regions of India. By October 2008 another 116 locations will be operationalised thus covering the entire Indian Railway network. What makes the system interesting is the touch screen KIOSKs that permit the crew to directly interact with the system. It will also include a BIO-Metric thumb impression reader that eradicates chances of proxy reporting, a problem that used to occur earlier in the manual system. It is these bold initiatives of the IT application that has been appreciated by the CIO 100. There were significant risks associated and if the application had not been designed well the probability of failure was high. After all if the average employee has to work directly with an advanced IT system, user friendliness is of key importance. It is this aspect that has led to its success. The Crew Management Sytem also uses SMS technologies for providing instant access to information both to crew members as well as to supervisory staff and managers. The cell phone has thus been integrated into the system to improve its efficacy. The solution architecture for the is energy optimized by way of use of TFT and thin client technology. The entire design and development is by the software engineers of CRIS and this award is yet another feather in the cap for CRIS.

June 19, 2008 - Deployment of CMS for Indian Railways

Deployment of CMS for Indian Railways

Matter for CMS Press Release

Date: June 19, 2008

Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) have added yet another jewel in their crown by deploying the Crew Management System (CMS) for Indian Railways. The crew comprising of Drivers and Guards are critical resources for the running of trains and their safety. The CMS provides information about these crew persons at all times and thus facilitates the booking of crew on freight trains, passenger carrying trains as well as short movements within terminals and yards.
The Indian Railways has nearly one lakh guards and drivers for performing train operations round the clock. The software solution automates their day-to-day business functions by providing information of their status, rostering their duty allocations, providing information on the availability of crew at their home station and assigning crew to the trains. All this leads to better crew management. CMS has been developed to bring in transparency and greater accuracy of information so that decision makers can take effective business decisions to control crew and optimize on crew utilization.
The software system was rolled out in Dec 2007 and already about 1000 data entry nodes at over 144 crew booking points have been commissioned. These are spread over 9 zones and 30 divisions of the Indian Railways, mainly in Central, Western, Northern regions of India. CMS at present has a database covering 35,000 crew members and over 8000 crew members are being booked daily through the system. By Oct 2008 another 140 locations will come up on Eastern, Southern and North Frontier regions thereby computerizing crew booking over the Indian Railways.
One interesting feature of the system is that the crew is able to interact with the system through a touch screen KIOSK. The System is also being provided with BIO-Metric (thumb impression reader) that eradicates any chances of proxy reporting. The solution is extremely user friendly. CMS uses SMS for providing instant access of information of crew available over mobile phones. CMS also enables crew booking through SMS, and providing information as well as alerts to the managerial and supervisory staff to take corrective action. In this manner the cell phone has been made an important enabler in facilitating quick decision making.

The solution architect for the CMS is energy optimized by way of use of TFT and thin client technology. This saves nearly 2 kilowatt of power for each crew booking locations which shall be huge energy saving for the nation. The entire software has been developed in-house by CRIS software engineers.

June 2,2008 - Case Study "E Working- A less paper initiative in the category "Non Profit Organizations"

Computerworld Honors Program

Centre for Railway Information System has been recognized as a Laureate by the Computerworld Honors Program for its case study “E Working- A less paper initiative in the category “Non Profit Organizations”. This year’s Honorees were commemorated during the 20th Annual Laureates Medal Ceremony & Gala Awards Evening on June 2, 2008 at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington D.C. 

For two decades, Computerworld Honors has acknowledged those individuals and organizations that have used information technology to benefit society

May 1, 2008 - IBM Beacon and Top Star Awards to CRIS for E-Working

IBM Beacon and Top Star Awards to CRIS for E-Working  

eWorking is a customized product designed for government departments across India seeking to create paperless office with an integrated document management system. It also features a single sign-on and role-based access. The manual process of moving physical files from one desk to another has been replaced. The earlier system resulted in unnecessary delays owing to lack of information & spatial dimensions of the office. eWorking is an intuitive web based interface that enables employees to work in an efficient and productive manner, enhances decision-making and increases employee morale. A bonus is the environment friendly paperless office. 

The eWorking solution has been implemented at South East Central Railway (SECR). It has received 2 prestigious global awards for innovation excellence in Government.
1. IBM Beacon Award Finalist
2.Global Public Sector Top Star AwardCRIS was selected as one of the IBM Beacon Award finalist in the category “Innovation Excellence in government” for the year 2008 for its e-working solution. It has been cited for demonstrating innovation excellence in developing a solution that has repeatable success in addressing customer needs in the area of e-governance. As a Winner/Finalist, Mr. G.K.Maishi, GGM/OAEW was invited to the IBM Business Partner Leadership Conference held in Los Angeles from April 30 till May 2, 2008, culminating in the Beacons Gala on the evening of May 1, 2008.  

April 21, 2008 - Prime Minister Award for Excellence in Public Administration to CRIS

Prime Minister Award for Excellence in Public Administration to CRIS

April 21, 2008 will go down as Golden Day in the History of CRIS, when Prime Minister of India awarded 28 Officers of CRIS for “Excellence in Public Administration” on Civil Services Day 2008 at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi. The Award was received by the Leader of the team, Mr. Vikram Chopra, Director Operations, CRIS. Each of the 28 members of team received a medallion, a scroll signed by Prime Minister and a cash prize. 

 The Prime Minister award has been given to CRIS for bringing about a significant change in the efficiency, effectiveness and performance of Indian Railways through development and implementation of computerised Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS).
The Award comes as a recognition of CRIS efforts in bringing about significant changes in the ticketing solution for the unreserved sector. 

Switching over to e-procurement for all the supply tenders.

          CRIS is gearing up for procurement through e-tendering. For participating in E-tenders, bidders are required to get registered on the website www.ireps.gov.in. For this, “Digital Signature Certificate Class-3 with Organization name” is required. Digital signature certificates can be obtained from any CA authorized by CCA India. Addresses of CAs can be found on CCAs website www.cca.gov.in (link is available on Home page of www.ireps.gov.in).

          In case of any difficulty, bidders may contact EPS Helpdesk at Phone Nos. 24105180- 4 lines (24102855, 24100746 and 24671469) or through email at helpdesk.eps@cris.org.in or with Shri Rajesh Kumar, Dy. Manager (Purchase), Mobile No.  9811334368  or Shri S.K. Sharma, Chief Manager (Purchase),Mobile No.  9717747721 .

          It may please be noted that in future, tenders will be issued / floated only through e-Tendering. As such, required formalities for participating through e-Tendering may please be got completed at the earliest otherwise it will not be possible for bidders to participate in the tender.