Railways taps Swiss expertise for rail safety, tunnel projects

India has partnered with Swiss tunneling experts for the Rishikesh-Karnaprayag and Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla railway projects, the ministry of railways said.

Central public sector units of the Indian Railways have collaborated with Swiss firms for the Rishikesh-Karnaprayag railway line and the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link, Ashwini Vaishnaw said in response to a question in Rajya Sabha last week.

The 125-km Rishikesh-Karnaprayag line in Uttarakhand is managed by Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd, and the 272-km Udhampur-Baramulla project is overseen by Indian Railway Construction International Ltd.

A memorandum of understanding (moU) between the Swiss federal department of environment, transport, energy and communications, and the railway ministry for technological cooperation is under consideration, the ministry said.

The areas of cooperation included in the agreement are rolling stock, safety, train scheduling and multimodal transport, the ministry said in response to a question by Uttar Pradesh member of Parliament Vijay Pal Singh Tomar.

On the sidelines of the World Economic Forum last month, Vaishnaw told the Press Trust of India that the railways plans to enter into an MoU with the Swiss railway to study its best practices, including tunneling technology.