By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, FEB 23, 2018: THE Indian Railways has been implementing various initiatives to improve its efficiency and promote Ease of Doing Business. In order to disseminate the information on such initiatives and to have open house discussion with its vendors, covering above areas and formulate plan and strategy to meet future challenges, Ministry of Railways organized “Suppliers’ Samvad – Journey towards Digitisation, Transparency & Ease of Doing Business” in association with RITES Ltd.

To mark the occasion Union Minister of Railways & Coal, Mr Piyush Goyal, also launched Digital Receipt Note, Receipted Challan & Digital Bill Submission to improve transparency & Ease of Doing Business.

This Samvad allowed stakeholders to discuss new ideas, issues, challenges, opportunities and concerns with an open mind. Sharing of different perspectives, experiences and knowledge will lead to better understanding of issues involved to efficiently utilize the opportunities and effectively respond to the challenges for creating a win-win solution.

This Samvad also helped in realizing Prime Minister’s dream of “Digital India Where Access To Information Knows No Barrier”.

Supply Chain of Indian Railways is regulated through a Single online web based platform which handles:

◦ More than ₹ 50,000 Crores procurement through 100% E-Tenders annually

◦ More than ₹ 3,000 Crores Auction Sale through100% E-Auctions annually

◦ More than 3.5 lakh e-tenders annually.

◦ More than 76,000 Registered Vendors.

◦ More than 3,000 Registered Bidders for sale of scrap materials.

Indian Railways is planning transformational changes and has geared up to access, understand and overcome any challenges in the journey with equal participation from the Industry. During Suppliers’ Samvad, Railways launched Digitisation of Suppliers’ bills which will be a great step forward towards improving transparency & Ease of Doing Business. It will enhance trust in the Railway-Vendor relationship which shall be a big step in the direction of Indian Railways’ journey towards “Digitisation”, “Transparency” & “Ease of Doing Business”.  Digitisation of Suppliers’ bills will provide end-to-end digital and paperless contracting, it is convenient to both Railways and vendors, and will result in faster transactions.

Indian Railways’ efforts are not limited to just digitizing its Supply Chain, but has taken various initiatives for development of indigenous vendors and the MSME sector.  It will keep focusing towards increasing participation of indigenous suppliers especially MSMEs.  It is very prompt in implementing any policy that envisions benefits to vendors.   Few such policies are ‘Make in India’ and preference to domestically manufactured electronic, Iron and Steel products.