Packing batteries with more punch
Indian researchers are working on cells that can store more energy, last longer
At a time when many government arms are struggling to shrink their offices into employees’ laptops, the Indian Railways may soon begin the ambitious process of shrinking its office into their mobiles.
RailTel, a public sector enterprise, is driving this exercise by pushing technological and behavioural change through YouTube, WhatsApp groups and appointing two managers in each office where the trial is on.
This e-office project (of which the mobile office venture is a part), which RailTel has also started in Coal India and some other railway public sector units, is profitable for the miniratna enterprise, according to its top officials.
“In the future, we are looking to provide the e-office suite for use on mobile devices as well. Implementation of e-office is being done across the ranks. So, office superintendents who initiate proposals are doing it on e-office,” Puneet Chawla, CMD, RailTel, told BusinessLine recently. To get moving on the project, RailTel has to ready one lakh digital signatures of its officials. It has managed to get 20,000 already, said Chawla.
E-office is a software developed by the National Informatics Centre, IT Ministry’s e-governance application building arm, to shift file movement from paper to electronic mode. This should cut time to process files and improve transparency. Interestingly, though Chawla leads the e-office project, he admits his own preference is to start his mornings by reading newspaper in print, not on electronic devices.
RailTel is implementing the e-office project for the entire Indian Railways, the country’s largest employer with 13 lakh staff. To successfully make this happen, RailTel has to ensure that all files on e-office can move seamlessly across offices, located in different cities. For this, RailTel has been using its own optical fibre cable laid along the rail network till now. But soon, it may start buying the services of cable TV operators that have the last mile connectivity.
“The difficulty is – earlier, we were not going for last mile connectivity extensively. Now, we have decided we will serve customers wherever they are, even where our access networks do not exist. We will hire fibre from other service providers or cable operators for the last mile,” he said.
To store all these files, the legacy data and e-drawings, RailTel has got its own cloud services, called Railcloud with about 1,000 Terabytes of storage space — that is space enought to store 10 lakh good quality movies of about 1 GB each. And, if needed RailTel will expand the storage space.
Shifting all the paperwork online will not threaten jobs of the government office staff set-up - stenos and secretaries, according to RailTel officials. It’s just that instead of on paper, files or reimbursement requisitions will be raised online, and “I will have to use the computer (or mobile) to click and approve,” explained Chawla as his organisation gives lessons to non-techies on how to swap pen and paper for keyboards.
Indian researchers are working on cells that can store more energy, last longer
To fix a broken bone, doctors often harvest another bone from the patient’s body or from someone else. It ...
Superconductors from IIScScientists at IISc Bangalore have invented a device with a nanocrystal structure ...
Engineering and construction giant L&T has won a licence from the Council of Scientific & Industrial ...
Will a stock continue its current trend or will it reverse? We tell you how you can read chart patterns to ...
Option price falls more than it rises for the same change in underlying
A long-term vacation here is worth a check-in
The fund delivered a return of 31.5% in 2020 compared with the category’s 15.5%
In these isolated times when people yearn for a slice of the familiar, amateur and professional chefs are ...
With strokes of quirky humour, Partha Pratim Deb uses pulp, terracotta, glass and discarded cloth to create ...
Given the events in Washington DC on January 6, this week’s quiz is all about buildings that house or housed ...
While good writing wars against the cliché, television gives it a natural home
Digital is becoming dominant media, but are companies and their ad agencies transforming fast enough to make a ...
Slow Network, promoted by journalist-lyricist Neelesh Misra, pushes rural products and experiences
How marketers can use the traditional exchange of festive wishes meaningfully
For Fortune, a brand celebrating its 20th anniversary, it was a rude shock to become the butt of social media ...
Three years after its inception, compliance with GST procedures remains a headache for exporters, job workers ...
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives of companies are altering the prospects for wooden toys of ...
Aequs Aerospace to create space for large-scale manufacture of toys at Koppal
And it has every reason to smile. Covid-19 has triggered a consumer shift towards branded products as ...
Please Email the Editor