If you resent the services of Indian Railways that boasts of a vast network of 67,368 kms, and want to really do something about it instead of merely grumbling, then you can send a strong workable solution to the government of India and get paid for it, and handsomely though.

Name of the competition is ‘How to Raise Money For Railways To Provide Better Services‘.

Indian Railways runs 13,329 passenger services daily catering to 22.24 million passengers.

The Indian Railways competition guidelines stipulate that one can send some practicable ways to raise money to help it improve services. And the good ideas stand to get huge cash prizes.

Winner of the first prize stands to receive Rs. 10 lakh. The second prize winner will receive Rs. 5 lakh. The third prize winner will be bestowed with a sum of Rs. 3 lakh, while the fourth prize draws a sum of Rs. one lakh.

HIGHLIGHTS

10 THINGS TO KNOW

1. To be able to post the entries using the online application system, one should visit https://innovate.mygov.in where one has to click the “click to participate” button. The participant will be taken to a landing page featuring the registration form with various fields.

2. The participants will have to fill out a registration form and entry submission form. The submission should comply with the requirements as set out in the Guidelines mentioned on the online Entry Submission Form.3. On successful submission, participant will receive a confirmation email. For any queries you can even email to ps07@nair.railnet.gov.in

4. The idea for improving the revenue of Indian Railways must be written in a maximum of 1,000 words while the abstract should be written in about 250 words. Any attachment, such as a PDF file or any power point presentation, can be sent as an attachment but should not exceed 8 MB in size. Value proposition to customers and relevance of the concept/ design in enhancing the customer experience has to be written in 150 words. Compliance to the boundary conditions has to be encapsulated in 250 words. The originality of proposed idea must be written in 150 words. The project’s cost effectiveness has to be written in 200 words and possible constraints must be listed out in another 150 words.

5. Indian Railways gives a backgrounder for the idea. The railways ministry concedes that gross revenue of Railways was Rs. 1,65,292 crore while working expenses for the year was Rs.1,59 lakh crore. The government has made an observation that the railways revenue has been almost stagnant for past four years, whereas the working expenses have been rising steadily. This has caused fall in investible surplus of Railways, thus affecting quality of services.

6: The Indian Railways competition is open to individuals and companies/ institutions.

7. The deadline to submit duly filed form is 6 pm of May 19.

8. The write-up can be submitted in Hindi or English.

9: To be able to judge an idea’s worth, 30 percent weightage would be given to viability of project, 20 percent to revenue potential, 10 percent to customer convenience, 10 per cent to scalability, 10 per cent to cost effectiveness, 10 per cent to compliance of boundary conditions, 5 per cent to detail orientation and the rest 5 percent to quality of presentation.

10. Any communication with a participant will be done through an email provided by the participant at the time of filling the application form.