2 Trains from (MGS)MUGHAL SARAI JN to (HSA)HASIMARA

Shri K. Arul Jothi took charge as Inspector General cum Principal Chief Security Commissioner (IG-cum-PCSC) of Northeast Frontier Railway o­n 24^th March, 2023. He is an officer from the 1995 batch of Civil Services Exam. As IG-cum-PCSC he will be the security custodian of all Railway assets, structures including track and fixtures, rolling stock, signalling gears and Railway buildings and establishments like Station premises, Booking Offices, Administrative Head Quarters etc. within the jurisdiction of N. F. Railway i.e. all north-eastern states including Sikkim and parts of West Bengal and Bihar.

Shri Jothi has wide experience of working in field over many Zonal Railways. He has worked in many sensitive areas such as Mughal Sarai, Danapur, Malda, Sealdah and Secunderabad. Earlier in the year 2017-2019 he was posted as Deputy Inspector General cum Chief Security Commissioner of N. F. Railway. Before joining as the IG-cum-PCSC of Northeast Frontier Railway, he was posted as the IG-cum-PCSC of Rail Wheel Factory based at Yelahanka, Bangalore.

N. F. Railway o­n 20^th March, 2023 signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with RailTel Corporation of India Ltd, for installation of Intrusion Detection System (IDS) to avert train-elephant collision and disaster mitigation measures. N. F. Railway has been taking many initiatives to prevent and detect movement of wild animals, especially elephants, approaching the tracks. Installation of IDS in important sections is o­ne such of them.

 The MoU was signed by G.R. Das, Chief Communication Engineer, N. F. Railway and Zakir Siddiqui, Executive Director/Eastern Region/Railtel in presence of Shri Anshul Gupta, General Manager/N. F. Railway and Shri Sanjay Kumar, Chief Managing Director/RailTel Corporation of India Ltd.

After 100% success of the pilot project o­n IDS that was undertaken by N.F. Railway in the Chalsa – Hasimara section of the Dooars area under Alipurduar Division in West Bengal and Lanka – Hawaipur section under Lumding Division in Assam, it has now been decided to install the system gradually in all other elephant corridors spread over N.F. Railway.

 The system is based o­n Artificial Intelligence (AI) and existing optical fibres will be used as sensors to identify movements of wild animals at locations and alert control offices, station masters, gateman and loco pilots. It uses fibre optic based acoustic system working o­n the principle of dialysis scattering phenomenon to sense the real time presence of elephants o­n the track. The AI based software can monitor un-usual movements up to a stretch of 60 km. In addition to it the IDS will also help in detecting rail fracture, trespassing o­n railway track and alert about disaster mitigation due to unauthorised digging near railway tracks, landslides near tracks etc.

It is important to mention here that the pilot project has already been immensely successfully in saving lives of many elephants approaching railway track from being hit by trains.