New Delhi: Indian Railways is on a mission to RFID-tag all wagons by December 2022. In a press release issued on July 24, the Ministry of Railways said that the national railway system will complete this process of fitting radio-frequency identification tags (RFID) in all the wagons by December 2022. RFID tags are a type of tracking system that uses smart barcodes in order to identify items. RFID is short for "radio frequency identification," and as such, RFID tags utilize radio frequency technology. These tags will be used for live tracking all wagons.

So far 23,000 wagons have been covered under RFID project. The project is still in progress and continuing, although this work has been slowed for some time due to Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. The government has fixed the deadline for the fitting of RFID in all the wagons of Indian Railways till December 2022.

Currently, the Indian Railway maintains such data manually, which leaves scope for errors. Using RFID devices will be easier for the railways to know the exact position of all the wagons, locomotives and coaches.

While the RFID tag will be fitted in the rolling stock, trackside readers will be installed at stations and key points along the tracks to read the tag from a distance of about two meters and transmit the wagon identity over a network to a central computer. In this way, each moving wagon will be identified and its movement will be tracked.

With the introduction of RFID, the issue of shortage of wagons, locomotives and coaches is expected to be addressed in a more transparent and expeditious manner, the statement said.

(PSU Watch– India's Business News centre that places the spotlight on PSUs, Bureaucracy, Defence and Public Policy is now on Telegram. Join PSU Watch Channel in your Telegram and stay updated)