All coaches, wagons to be RFID tagged and tracked by 2021: Railways

Around 3,50,000 coaches and wagons of the railways will be RFID tagged and tracked by 2021 and the cost of the project will be around Rs 112 crore, a senior official said Wednesday.

Till now approximately 22,000 wagons and 1200 coaches have been fitted with radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags, said Rajesh Agarwal, member, Rolling Stock, Railway Board.

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Additionally, roughly 3,500 fixed RFID readers are expected to come up which shall communicate to a central control centre using GS1 barcode's LLRP (low level reader protocol) standard, he said.

The RFID project undertaken by CRIS, the IT arm of Indian Railways, can read data even at a speed of 182 kmph, Agarwal said.

This technology will help railways track each of its coaches and wagons as a result of which they can be suitably deployed in a timely manner wherever necessary, he said.

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