Dear Shri Batra,
Sub: ACD- inquiry ordered by Railway BoardRef. Bd’s :
My comments were requested for by Dr Gokhale, and hence after seeing the development in the Board, I cannot but write this letter, in the national interest and to protect Honour of our Minster, who seems to have been given venomous advice, to hurt not only him but the Government in power.
I am currently in USA with my son on a personal trip- and hence to save time I have to take recourse to e-mail.
One relevant para which characterizes the entire approach of the Committee appointed by the Ministry of Railways to examine how the technology partner was chosen by Konkan Railway is reproduced.
Comments of Mr. B Rajaram ex-MD Konkan Railway on 31st May 2006
Prior to production of the prototype of the ACD by the Kernex, without payment, Konkan Railway did not spend any funds. The first ACD was made on success based , that too limited to Rs 5 lacs if demonstrated within 90 days. Rest of answers and reasons are detailed below.
The story of ACD starts with one page. The committee has to go back to period following the Ghaisal accident. The railway was in turmoil. The RDSO was of not offering any solution and CRB himself at that time mentioned we really have serious technical difficulty. It is a matter of a concept first germinating and then see who has the capacity to develop it further.
This query indicates the committee’s lack of any perception as to how to develop a new non-existent product. It is not a works contract project, nor can you put specifications for a product in conceptual stage. In fact RDSO struggled with this type of approach and has become a black hole, and happily continues remain one. Since they follow the stores code mentality, they can only buy a proven foreign technology product, which is happening day in day out. So the committee has to first understand the difference between creative innovation and basic technology development as against buying off the shelf products.The questions the committee is raising, have no relevance if they understand this difference.
They have to answer themselves, how do you call for tenders for a product which you have not yet developed? The Ministry even now has not been able to freeze the functional requirements specifications and design and development activities are still continuing. So the process of finalizing the specifications is still on and hopefully after the NF railway trials , if the railways agree that they have firmed up the specifications and no more variations, then open tenders can be called by the Railways and then Konkan Railway also will quote competing with all others- to give the product at the proper market price- they have full right to continue to use the outsourced facility so long as they are able to economically compete and get their orders.
Konkan Railway is a govt owned corporation, but a corporation, which is expected to make profits from their operations including supply of ACDs. This inquiry is meaning-less, to treat Konkan Railway as another Government department to follow the same rules as the RDSO – RDSO enjoys budgetary support without need to show any profitability. The Konkan Railway as company works like a business concern- not as one of the departments of ministry of railway. The Intellectual property rights of Konkan Railway need to be converted into value- there is interdependency of skills available only in the market and domain knowledge of railway and patent right for deviation count theory available with Konkan Railway. So all the MOUs and working arrangements made have to be viewed with this back ground and the preset approach of the ministry to the case is distorted- to kill the business interest of Konkan Railway, while harming their own interest to protect trains cost-effectively.
Specifically:
It is Mr. B Rajaram as Managing Director, who first wrote the concept in one page and sent to Khanna Committee as suggestion to improve safety- records in Board should be verified.
The concept has to be verified by a prototype for technical feasibility. But looking at the atmosphere in the country where people were doing Satyanarayan pooja before boarding the trains, verifiable from press coverage of the period following the head-on collisions and loss of lives, and railway officers were ashamed to reveal their identity by way of any visible official diary in hand while traveling by trains, as a railwayman, Mr Rajaram fixed a war like target, to produce a prototype while working together with a software cum hardware company. If you want to produce a new type of product, totally within India, where specifications have to be evolved- we work only with certain broad performance requirements.
It is Konkan Railway men who produced the design for auto-braking unit, and that in a matter of 48 hours!!
Similarly it is Konkan Railway man, B. Rajaram, who produced a new theory Deviation Count theory, to cause the break through in the technology.
The Tata Infotech was already working major software company with KRCL and similarly KERNEX was the company involved with development of real time data loggers to work with the Operating and train control module of Konkan Railway- the criterion being the most cost effective solutions.
In fact the project initially was handled from the desk of MD, on HOURLY basis, and on telephones to cut down the administrative delays – the offer was clear open ended specification and success based payment limited to Rs 5 lacs for each of the companies. Tata Infotech tried hard but wanted most expensive differential gps to be brought in as used in ships- which will not make the cost of unit competitive. They also failed to integrate communication hardware with the programmable cpu.
Guidance and technical direction and interaction was at the MD level itself- while all concerned HODs worked as team.
Mr Rajaram tried personally to rope in Motorola, whose office in Bangalore also he had visited earlier- and whose hand sets only were modified for providing the communication link between approaching locomotives. Even the modifications had to be done without the active help of Motorola- too big a company – did not think much of our concept.
The first prototypes were demonstrated by KERNEX, within 90 days as palnned and even the Khanna Commission members by Kernex- Tata Infotech could not solve the problem of realtime communication and action at the CPU level.
Expenditure was not incurred by Konkan Railway at this stage except for departmental work of spending a few hundred rupees for the auto braking unit- and telephone conversations on hourly basis day and night.
Even Railway Board for the first time got this KERNEX prototype only tested by RDSO and from then on the continuous story of RDSO involving in the project started. In fact it is a matter of record that the FRS and specifications and standards to be followed were submitted to RDSO only, and only after due approvals Railway Ministry released the funds to Konkan Railway.
It is also not too amusing to note that RDSO took clearly an adversal role to kill the project at every stage and Konkan Railway had to muster even help from renowned scientists of BARC, Space DOT as well as from CENELEC experts of Germany, to correct the misguiding reports of RDSO! If an inquiry is held how the RDSO behaved in the entire development process- written records will reveal the prejudiced non-objective manner, not becoming of the trust placed by the Ministry in RDSO as an independent technical advisor.
Even here, one should check the original files in the Board’s office- actually Mr Rajaram did ask for an amount of Rs 5 cr to set up in-house assembly facility as early as beginning of 2000- but Board in its wisdom did not agree and wanted the facility to be virtually outsourced.
When the one page concept paper, was written by Mr Rajaram, there were more number of cynical and derisive comments all round ridiculing the same. Who will take up and approve expenditure to develop? Even in Konkan Railway- Mr Rajaram as MD, had to get some parties to develop on their own agreeing to accept to be paid after demonstration! It is difficult get our age honoured tradition bound finance officers to agree to such expenditure!
Almost at all stages of development, in the quarterly reports to the BOD, the ACD project was reported and talked about, even though by virtue of powers vested with the MD, no approval of Board was needed.
We did not deal with any foreign company for partner ship nor mou, hence no government approval was required to form understandings to create an outsourced exclusive facility of laboratory and manufacturing facility for Konkan railway- it is the most cost effective means of technology control and development.
The MoUs have to be carefully studied- they are pretty serious documents and cannot be understood if one wears blinkers of stores code.
Protection of intellectual property has never been the subject matter for the administration and hence all rules are made for buying off the shelf somebody else’s property! When it comes to protecting your own intellectual property, then the rules of the game are different. This is typical example as to how a Corporation tried its best to protect public interest and normal stores procuring minds need to first understand the difference.
If the committee wants to view now with the success story today of ACD, the first knowledge embedded device Indian Industry has produced, of world class with third party certifications, which is not available in Europe (and even GE now wants to get their hands on, because their technology is not certified! ) actually there are lessons that RDSO and the Ministry should learn as to how to develop a new and innovative technology product! The methods adopted by the Ministry for works and stores contracts, and sought now to be applied in case of world’s competitive cutting edge technology- are ridiculous- a creative product cannot be produced by tendering! The committee is doing a self-defeating exercise in futility.
If the current action is only to harass the officers and team who diligently worked hard to produce a world class technology which RDSO cannot claim to have produced in the last half a century spending more than 500 crores on various research projects as well as wasted my patents given to RDSO when I was in RDSO, following the venerable stores procedure code, it speaks volumes for the not only lack of just administrative balance but also indicates a criminal bent of mind hurting national interest- to promote perhaps the GE , (earlier Siemens or Alsthom,) which is the latest multi-national which repeatedly tried to make forays into Konkan Railway premises to grab the ACD technology, to cover up their inefficient uncertified train control technology. If this inquiry is a way of helping GE by frightening the Konkan Railway to stop working further on ACD, it will be obvious- because , it will not be surprising to see soon enough, some senior RDSO officers flying off to GE in USA in the name of study tours.
Our innocent railway officers accustomed to follow the normal stores code, do not understand the nuances of technology war and the vigil needed to protect our property from being stolen Obviously some one in the Board has given the wrong impressions to the Honble Minister, creating a needless mess and confusion. A letter addressed by Mr Rajaram regarding the technology war cautioning the current MD/ Konkan Railway is enclosed. In fact a secret message has also been filed with CBI in this regard, to watch out for the agents of multinationals using our official machinery to steal the property from our country.
Once the product development to the satisfaction of railways is completed, then Railway are welcome to circulate the FRS and call for open tenders, making Konkan Railway also to quote, (but Konakan Railway becomes the approved vendor) when the opportunity costing can be done and true value of ACD is realized as profit to Konkan Railway. Since in the world neither GE nor Alsthom can meet these performance parameters- at the prices being offered and the technology breakthrough of Deviation Count theory is available to Konakn railway, as assigned by Mr Rajaram as inventor. Konkan Railway is a public sector undertaking company, just like another equipment supplier- and their internal arrangements to produce an equipment to beat the world players are commercial in nature and protect their IP rights while delivering the requirements of Indian Raiways. So Ministry trying to view to apply stores code for this technology development effort is serious mis-application of mind.
The Honble Minister need to be advised properly, that wrong misleading briefing has been given by some one in the Rly Board office- to serve perhaps another MNC interest. It is truly a technology war, and I hate to think of our Honourable Minister being made an instrument to act to protect interest of an MNC, while killing our own nation’s pride of performance, the Raksha Kavach!
With regards,
B.Rajaram M.Tech FIE ., FNAE IRSEFormer MD Konkan Railway
Sub: ACD- inquiry ordered by Railway BoardRef. Bd’s :
My comments were requested for by Dr Gokhale, and hence after seeing the development in the Board, I cannot but write this letter, in the national interest and to protect Honour of our Minster, who seems to have been given venomous advice, to hurt not only him but the Government in power.
I am currently in USA with my son on a personal trip- and hence to save time I have to take recourse to e-mail.
One relevant para which characterizes the entire approach of the Committee appointed by the Ministry of Railways to examine how the technology partner was chosen by Konkan Railway is reproduced.
Comments of Mr. B Rajaram ex-MD Konkan Railway on 31st May 2006
Prior to production of the prototype of the ACD by the Kernex, without payment, Konkan Railway did not spend any funds. The first ACD was made on success based , that too limited to Rs 5 lacs if demonstrated within 90 days. Rest of answers and reasons are detailed below.
The story of ACD starts with one page. The committee has to go back to period following the Ghaisal accident. The railway was in turmoil. The RDSO was of not offering any solution and CRB himself at that time mentioned we really have serious technical difficulty. It is a matter of a concept first germinating and then see who has the capacity to develop it further.
This query indicates the committee’s lack of any perception as to how to develop a new non-existent product. It is not a works contract project, nor can you put specifications for a product in conceptual stage. In fact RDSO struggled with this type of approach and has become a black hole, and happily continues remain one. Since they follow the stores code mentality, they can only buy a proven foreign technology product, which is happening day in day out. So the committee has to first understand the difference between creative innovation and basic technology development as against buying off the shelf products.The questions the committee is raising, have no relevance if they understand this difference.
They have to answer themselves, how do you call for tenders for a product which you have not yet developed? The Ministry even now has not been able to freeze the functional requirements specifications and design and development activities are still continuing. So the process of finalizing the specifications is still on and hopefully after the NF railway trials , if the railways agree that they have firmed up the specifications and no more variations, then open tenders can be called by the Railways and then Konkan Railway also will quote competing with all others- to give the product at the proper market price- they have full right to continue to use the outsourced facility so long as they are able to economically compete and get their orders.
Konkan Railway is a govt owned corporation, but a corporation, which is expected to make profits from their operations including supply of ACDs. This inquiry is meaning-less, to treat Konkan Railway as another Government department to follow the same rules as the RDSO – RDSO enjoys budgetary support without need to show any profitability. The Konkan Railway as company works like a business concern- not as one of the departments of ministry of railway. The Intellectual property rights of Konkan Railway need to be converted into value- there is interdependency of skills available only in the market and domain knowledge of railway and patent right for deviation count theory available with Konkan Railway. So all the MOUs and working arrangements made have to be viewed with this back ground and the preset approach of the ministry to the case is distorted- to kill the business interest of Konkan Railway, while harming their own interest to protect trains cost-effectively.
Specifically:
It is Mr. B Rajaram as Managing Director, who first wrote the concept in one page and sent to Khanna Committee as suggestion to improve safety- records in Board should be verified.
The concept has to be verified by a prototype for technical feasibility. But looking at the atmosphere in the country where people were doing Satyanarayan pooja before boarding the trains, verifiable from press coverage of the period following the head-on collisions and loss of lives, and railway officers were ashamed to reveal their identity by way of any visible official diary in hand while traveling by trains, as a railwayman, Mr Rajaram fixed a war like target, to produce a prototype while working together with a software cum hardware company. If you want to produce a new type of product, totally within India, where specifications have to be evolved- we work only with certain broad performance requirements.
It is Konkan Railway men who produced the design for auto-braking unit, and that in a matter of 48 hours!!
Similarly it is Konkan Railway man, B. Rajaram, who produced a new theory Deviation Count theory, to cause the break through in the technology.
The Tata Infotech was already working major software company with KRCL and similarly KERNEX was the company involved with development of real time data loggers to work with the Operating and train control module of Konkan Railway- the criterion being the most cost effective solutions.
In fact the project initially was handled from the desk of MD, on HOURLY basis, and on telephones to cut down the administrative delays – the offer was clear open ended specification and success based payment limited to Rs 5 lacs for each of the companies. Tata Infotech tried hard but wanted most expensive differential gps to be brought in as used in ships- which will not make the cost of unit competitive. They also failed to integrate communication hardware with the programmable cpu.
Guidance and technical direction and interaction was at the MD level itself- while all concerned HODs worked as team.
Mr Rajaram tried personally to rope in Motorola, whose office in Bangalore also he had visited earlier- and whose hand sets only were modified for providing the communication link between approaching locomotives. Even the modifications had to be done without the active help of Motorola- too big a company – did not think much of our concept.
The first prototypes were demonstrated by KERNEX, within 90 days as palnned and even the Khanna Commission members by Kernex- Tata Infotech could not solve the problem of realtime communication and action at the CPU level.
Expenditure was not incurred by Konkan Railway at this stage except for departmental work of spending a few hundred rupees for the auto braking unit- and telephone conversations on hourly basis day and night.
Even Railway Board for the first time got this KERNEX prototype only tested by RDSO and from then on the continuous story of RDSO involving in the project started. In fact it is a matter of record that the FRS and specifications and standards to be followed were submitted to RDSO only, and only after due approvals Railway Ministry released the funds to Konkan Railway.
It is also not too amusing to note that RDSO took clearly an adversal role to kill the project at every stage and Konkan Railway had to muster even help from renowned scientists of BARC, Space DOT as well as from CENELEC experts of Germany, to correct the misguiding reports of RDSO! If an inquiry is held how the RDSO behaved in the entire development process- written records will reveal the prejudiced non-objective manner, not becoming of the trust placed by the Ministry in RDSO as an independent technical advisor.
Even here, one should check the original files in the Board’s office- actually Mr Rajaram did ask for an amount of Rs 5 cr to set up in-house assembly facility as early as beginning of 2000- but Board in its wisdom did not agree and wanted the facility to be virtually outsourced.
When the one page concept paper, was written by Mr Rajaram, there were more number of cynical and derisive comments all round ridiculing the same. Who will take up and approve expenditure to develop? Even in Konkan Railway- Mr Rajaram as MD, had to get some parties to develop on their own agreeing to accept to be paid after demonstration! It is difficult get our age honoured tradition bound finance officers to agree to such expenditure!
Almost at all stages of development, in the quarterly reports to the BOD, the ACD project was reported and talked about, even though by virtue of powers vested with the MD, no approval of Board was needed.
We did not deal with any foreign company for partner ship nor mou, hence no government approval was required to form understandings to create an outsourced exclusive facility of laboratory and manufacturing facility for Konkan railway- it is the most cost effective means of technology control and development.
The MoUs have to be carefully studied- they are pretty serious documents and cannot be understood if one wears blinkers of stores code.
Protection of intellectual property has never been the subject matter for the administration and hence all rules are made for buying off the shelf somebody else’s property! When it comes to protecting your own intellectual property, then the rules of the game are different. This is typical example as to how a Corporation tried its best to protect public interest and normal stores procuring minds need to first understand the difference.
If the committee wants to view now with the success story today of ACD, the first knowledge embedded device Indian Industry has produced, of world class with third party certifications, which is not available in Europe (and even GE now wants to get their hands on, because their technology is not certified! ) actually there are lessons that RDSO and the Ministry should learn as to how to develop a new and innovative technology product! The methods adopted by the Ministry for works and stores contracts, and sought now to be applied in case of world’s competitive cutting edge technology- are ridiculous- a creative product cannot be produced by tendering! The committee is doing a self-defeating exercise in futility.
If the current action is only to harass the officers and team who diligently worked hard to produce a world class technology which RDSO cannot claim to have produced in the last half a century spending more than 500 crores on various research projects as well as wasted my patents given to RDSO when I was in RDSO, following the venerable stores procedure code, it speaks volumes for the not only lack of just administrative balance but also indicates a criminal bent of mind hurting national interest- to promote perhaps the GE , (earlier Siemens or Alsthom,) which is the latest multi-national which repeatedly tried to make forays into Konkan Railway premises to grab the ACD technology, to cover up their inefficient uncertified train control technology. If this inquiry is a way of helping GE by frightening the Konkan Railway to stop working further on ACD, it will be obvious- because , it will not be surprising to see soon enough, some senior RDSO officers flying off to GE in USA in the name of study tours.
Our innocent railway officers accustomed to follow the normal stores code, do not understand the nuances of technology war and the vigil needed to protect our property from being stolen Obviously some one in the Board has given the wrong impressions to the Honble Minister, creating a needless mess and confusion. A letter addressed by Mr Rajaram regarding the technology war cautioning the current MD/ Konkan Railway is enclosed. In fact a secret message has also been filed with CBI in this regard, to watch out for the agents of multinationals using our official machinery to steal the property from our country.
Once the product development to the satisfaction of railways is completed, then Railway are welcome to circulate the FRS and call for open tenders, making Konkan Railway also to quote, (but Konakan Railway becomes the approved vendor) when the opportunity costing can be done and true value of ACD is realized as profit to Konkan Railway. Since in the world neither GE nor Alsthom can meet these performance parameters- at the prices being offered and the technology breakthrough of Deviation Count theory is available to Konakn railway, as assigned by Mr Rajaram as inventor. Konkan Railway is a public sector undertaking company, just like another equipment supplier- and their internal arrangements to produce an equipment to beat the world players are commercial in nature and protect their IP rights while delivering the requirements of Indian Raiways. So Ministry trying to view to apply stores code for this technology development effort is serious mis-application of mind.
The Honble Minister need to be advised properly, that wrong misleading briefing has been given by some one in the Rly Board office- to serve perhaps another MNC interest. It is truly a technology war, and I hate to think of our Honourable Minister being made an instrument to act to protect interest of an MNC, while killing our own nation’s pride of performance, the Raksha Kavach!
With regards,
B.Rajaram M.Tech FIE ., FNAE IRSEFormer MD Konkan Railway
posted by Engr. B. Rajaram ;Inventor ACD/Skybus at 7:45 PM
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