Keeping Track

Indian
Railways, the world's second largest railway, carries over 11 mn passengers
everyday as it criss-crosses the length and breadth of the country. Can one
possibly make a positive impact on the lives of these millions? Surely, the
technology and the people behind it can, and are already on track to simplify
life for this sizeable chunk of the Indian population. The sheer scale of work
and the magnitude of impact that first attracted Dr Rajesh Narang, general
manager, Systems, at the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), to join
that league, today keeps him going with the same formidable energy and passion.

After stabilizing the
passenger reservation system (PRS), he is now entrusted with the task of
automating the unreserved ticketing system, which accounts for almost 95% of the
passenger load on the Indian Railways. Considering this, Narang is undoubtedly
the man in the throes of one of his biggest challenges ever. “The scale and
the magnitude of projects that we get to do here in railways, and their
socio-economic impact, cannot be matched by the private sector and therein lies
the satisfaction,” he explains. With over 23 years of experience in the public
sector, he has no regrets for having not tried his luck in the private sector.

CRIS was established
in 1986 as an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Railways. It is, in
effect, the IT arm of Indian Railways and its activities encompass the entire
gamut of design, development, implementation and maintenance of the IT systems.
As general manager of CRIS, Narang is responsible for delivering on the
technology strategy through application-oriented, technology-driven business
solutions. He is also responsible for all of the application development.

Narang began his stint
at CRIS in 1995 as deputy chief system manager and regional manager of PRS —
Northern Railway. Prior to this, he spent around three years each at National
Informatics Center and Steel Authority of India, followed by a longer tenure
with the Central Road Research Institute as the head of the computer center.
According to Narang, “dirtying” his hands at practical work on field during
the initial years has been instrumental in firming up the fundamentals for
handling his present assignment. “Getting your hands dirty is critical in
learning to climb the ropes. Even when you reach the level of heading the IT
operations, the job is not done with merely conceptualizing, as one has to see
it through the light of the day and further ensure that it is maintained as
well,” he explains.   

Narang joined SAIL in
January 1983 at the steel giant's Rourkela plant, and later moved to EDP
department of Bhilai Steel Plant a year later. At SAIL, he was involved in the
applications related to inventory management and preventive maintenance
schedules of the open-hearth furnaces. The EDP department was then not a part of
the mainstream IT that was beginning to evolve around that time. NIC was
becoming the hub of IT activities. With a desire to work in the midst of the
mainstream activity, he moved to NIC and became part of the team of the newly
incorporated Operational Research and Modeling Group. The group was set up to
carry out scientific studies based on operation research, statistics and
simulation techniques.

At NIC, he was
involved in the development of scientific applications requiring forecasting of
data. According to Narang, the applications being developed and used at that
time were akin to the data mining and business intelligence tools of today.
“Even at that time, we were using the technology which is being used in data
mining applications today. The work that I was involved in at NIC was at the
forefront of the technology,” he explains.

His key projects at
NIC included application for forecasting the fertilizer demand for the next 20
years for the Fertilizer Association of India. Another challenging assignment
was developing a system for simulating the dwelling time, service time for the
containers as well as the container capacity requirements at depots. The
application was based on the general purpose simulation system (GPSS), which was
something very new at that time.

However, eyeing bigger
challenges, Narang beckoned the call from Central Road Research Institute (CRRI).
He points out that the opportunity to head the computer center at CRRI was
tempting enough to make him move out of NIC. It was not only the opportunity to
be at the helm of the IT affairs but also the challenge of setting up the center
right from scratch. This also brought in its wake new responsibilities, which
according to Narang, helped him gain a better understanding of technology from
all perspectives.

According to Narang,
whenever a new system was to be installed, it was a challenging task deciding
whether to go for it or not, as the responsibility had increased manifold. But
with the responsibility, also came the learning experience that provided a
holistic view on IT. “It was a different experience altogether. Only then, I
realized that software/application development is a small part of the whole
lifecycle and only the tip of the iceberg. Other aspects like selection,
procurement, customizing, making the system run, and then ensuring that it runs
successfully through its whole lifecycle are equally critical and make up for
the complete IT systems within an organization,” he says. Narang was
responsible for the installation of the fire system, air-conditioning, and all
the basic systems right up to the hardware, software, and setting up of the LAN
and a state-of-the-art computer laboratory.

Apart from his main
work, he also undertook the task of encapsulating the entire knowledge written
in the manuals by the researchers and scientists and putting it into a software.
The exercise also helped him develop the flair for writing. He has written two
books titled Object Oriented Interfaces and Databases (2002) and Database
Management System (2004).

Cruising through CRIS

After six years at CRRI, he shifted gears in 1995 to again enter the
mainstream of IT activity. He moved to CRIS as deputy chief system manager in
February that year, and thereafter graduated to the post of regional manager in
September 1996 to head the northern region of the passenger reservation system (PRS).
This was followed by his promotion to the post of chief system manager in May
2000.

His first assignment
at CRIS involved the migration of the entire passenger related data of the PRS,
from the system developed by CMC, to the new system developed by CRIS for the
Delhi site. The porting of the database required that all the passenger
reservations for Delhi be closed for a day.

Narang successfully
carried out the project, and this made him realize that his work directly
affected the common man.

Unreserved Ticketing

The realization has become even more pronounced as he spearheads the
unreserved ticketing system (UTS) project. Automating the unreserved system is
currently a big thrust area for the Railways with a majority of the investments
going into this initiative. The criticality of the project for Railways, CRIS
and for Narang can be gauged from the fact that the system concerns over 95% of
train passengers. The UTS has already been commissioned in over 400 booking
locations across the country with around 2,000-3,000 users issuing the tickets
through the system, with a target to cover around 1,520 locations by the year
2007.

The system is aimed at
improving customer satisfaction, revenue generation, accounting and reporting
capabilities while reducing fraud. Most certainly, Narang is aware of the
immense responsibility that rests on his shoulders to successfully see through
the commissioning of the project throughout the country.

Shipra
Arora 

shipraa@cybermedia.co.in

Source: Dataquest