NEW DELHI: Rajaram Bojji, former managing director of Konkan Railway Corporation, who developed the anti-collision device (ACD) which might have saved 60 lives in Monday’s train crash involving Uttarbanga Express and Vananchal Express, is a bitter man today.
Bojji, in an e-mail response to a mail sent to him by Express, said his years of hard work has come to naught. “They are very wise and having given away my rights, they own the ACD and have a right to kill it along with commuters who buy tickets to travel in their trains.”
Bojji, who has established Atrilab, a research and development company in the US and Hyderabad, said, “It is very depressing and hopeless to have worked in India hoping to improve.”
And his advice to himself after having moved on: “Years of hard work proved to no avail. Learn the lesson young man. Live your life well.”
Bojji, an IIT alumnus, holds several patents in India and abroad for his inventions, which cover railway technologies, world’s first Intelligent anti-collision devices network ‘Raksha Kavach’ (already under implementation over 2500 km of route on Indian Railways), sky bus metro (concept first presented in Bologna University Italy, by him in 1989) - in all, 17 patents have been assigned by him to the Government, through Konkan Railway Corporation.
The ACD uses both radio frequency and Global Positioning System (GPS) through satellites, whereby a train is automatically brought to a halt if the track ahead is not clear. The train starts braking 3 km ahead of a blockade.
The reasons are not difficult to guess as to why Bojji is sad at the immense loss of life but also bitter at Railway bureaucracy, which has stalled the implementation of the device.
In the January 2006, the Railways announced that the anti-collision device, already installed on all Konkan Railway routes and many Northeast Frontier Railway routes, was to be extended to the entire broad gauge rail network in the country by 2013.
Again, this has found a mention in the Railway Budget presented by Mamata Banerjee and in the White Paper issued by Railway Ministry in December 2009.