The Indian Railways plans to implement use of information technology to keep track of it’s inventory of locomotives, coaches and wagons. It is planning to make use of radio-frequency identification tags (RFID) for this purpose.

Indian Railways possesses about 9,000 locomotives, 50,000 coaches and 2.25 lakh wagons.

Radio-frequency identification tags will be designed by the Centre for Railway Information System (CRIS). These tags are estimated to cost Rs 1000 per piece.   The first phase of new system has got allocation of Rs 57 crore from the Railways.

Use of RFID devices would enable the Railways not only to keep location track of inventory, but also make optimum use  of these assets. This will also eliminate the errors caused by present manual system.

Each moving  coach and wagon will be identified and its movement will be tracked by RFID tag traced by trackside readers. These trackside readers would be installed at stations and other key points on the tracks, and will have capacity to read a tag from a distance of about two meters.  Reading of a wagon identity tag taken thus will be transmitted on the network to a central computer server.

RFID system has been  implemented as a pilot project on the Vishakhapatnam-Talcher-Paradeep section with a good result.  

The RFID is expected to resolve the issue of shortage of locomotives, coaches and wagons in a more expeditious and transparent manner, opined a senior Railway Ministry official, according to Times of India report.