NEW DELHI: Following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s directive to simplify the clearance procedures, the Ministry of Railways has launched an online approval and monitoring system for rolling stock, locomotives, signalling and telecommunication equipment and track components acquired from vendors.
The Research Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO), the research and development organisation of the public sector giant, has started an online system for vendor approval, product inspection monitoring system and wagon production monitoring system to ensure transparency.
“The vendor approval procedure, which was tedious and varied from Directorate to Directorate, has now been redefined and made uniform for all the directorates. The registration charges are also uniform for all items in all the Directorates and monitoring has now been made simpler,” said a ministry official.
Vendor approval in RDSO is jointly granted by Design Directorates and Quality Assurance Directorates.
The Prime Minister had asked all the Union Ministries to start online approvals and clearances for projects so that they could be cleared in a time bound manner. The Project Monitoring Group (PMG) under the Cabinet Secretariat has been working to start a single window clearance system for clearances to all projects so that they are not unnecessarily delayed.
The RDSO also inspects critical and safety items of rolling stock, locomotives, signalling and telecommunication equipment and track components. To simplify the inspection method and reduce the paper work, the inspection work has been made online.
“Online system is capable of registering inspection request by manufacturer, nominating inspectors, monitoring the status of inspection by RDSO as well as vendor. The purchaser and user would know the status of inspection,” said the official. The method of pasting hologram instead of the old practice of stamping has been introduced and it has been found to be effective in eliminating duplicate stamping and avoiding intermixing of materials. It has also improved traceability.
The RDSO looks after development, adoption, absorption of new technology for use on Railways, development of standards for materials and products specially needed by Railways and technical investigation, statutory clearances, testing and providing consultancy services among others.