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RailTel- keeping the network running during the COVID-19 crisis

Posted by RailTel

The wave of COVID19 pandemic has hit hard and to tackle this disease, the whole country has gone in an unprecedented lockdown to maintain social distancing. However, owing to the nature of work, RailTel, a Miniratna PSU under Ministry of Railways, had to adapt some crucial steps to continue to provide essential service of Telcom infrastructure, Railway communication and home broadband to its client.

RailTel handles crucial communication system, video conferencing and implementation of e-office platform as well storing important data for Indian Railways in its two data centres (Gurgaon and Secunderabad). In the current crisis situation, ensuring the availability of essential commodities and associated supply chain is of paramount importance for which Railway freight operations need to be run operated without any hiccups. In such a scenario it is all the more important for keeping the network and data centre operations stable so that it doesn’t hamper the Railway freight movement and communication between all the offices of Indian railways across the country. A large number of Banks are also dependent on RailTel services for their data communications needs.

To run the two data centres and 4 Regional Network Operation Centres and One Central Network Operation Centre, RailTel management has deployed minimal physical workforce of 2-3 employees for whom rosters has been prepared and duties are being set on rotation basis. Special arrangements for Boarding and Lodging have been made either at RailTel premises or at a nearby residential area close to RailTel offices so that the employees do not need to travel over large distances or use mass transport. Majority of the maintenance work has been shifted to various internal Network monitoring platform and tools of RailTel and being monitored remotely. Only, skeletal workforce has been deployed on the ground for essential physical maintenance and for exigencies. All the operational centres are being thoroughly sanitized and disinfected and deputed employees are also maintaining all essential personal hygiene so that no contamination happens. The employee while carrying out work are following social distancing at Data Centre, Network Operation Centres and in field. Permissions from local authorities have also been obtained for employees of our partners and support agencies to ensure no disruptions to services.

RailTel was already implementing e-office platform for Indian Railways for enabling paperless office system. Currently 72976 users are enabled to work from home using this platform. The work of e-office implementation has not been hampered by lockdown and 1116 users were registered after lockdown period. Despite resource movement restrictions, RailTel team planned the execution and implementation and user training was done remotely.  RailTel has also created Virtual Private Network for 400 users of Indian Railways and based on further request the service will be provided.

With majority of the workforce working remotely, the video conferencing service provided by Railtel to Indian Railways has also proved to be very effective. The number of video meetings has almost doubled during lockdown period for effectively coordinating the freight train operation on war footing.

Talking about challenges during the lockdown, Sh. Puneet Chawla, CMD/RailTel said, “In many cases field staff are facing challenges in venturing out due to repeated and multiple checks, non-availability of means of transport, closure of establishments where are equipment’s are housed giving feed to upstream services are some obstacles that we are fighting with. But our teams are working 24X7 to handle any kind of fault so that the network is in best of health. Also, we are taking every possible measure to ensure safety of our workforce on ground as well. RailTel is highly motivated to  continue to serve the nation in its crisis of epic proportions.”

Even before the country went under lockdown, RailTel, following Govt advisory, prepared roster of employees to start working with skeletal workforce on ground and rest from home. Cleanliness and hygiene were always a mandate at RailTel offices but with spread of COVID19, extra measures like cleaning and disinfecting surfaces a number of times during the day, sanitizers at office premises, temperature check at the entrance for all employees and visitor became a practice at RailTel offices. RailTel had already adapted NIC e-office and majority of its file work were being done in digital platform, so when Work from Home became the need of the hour, RailTel was ready for it and the transition was swift and smooth. All employees were given access to RailTel’s Virtual Private Network through which they can use E-office, ERP, Intranet platforms remotely so that regular work is not hampered.

Apart from taking all precautions and keeping all the essential functions running, to support the noble cause of fighting the COVID 19 pandemic in India, RailTel has contributed Rs 2 Crores to the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situation fund ( PM- CARES fund) from the CSR fund for FY19-20 of RailTel. In addition, contribution of Rs 15.5 lakh which is the voluntary contribution of one day’s salary of RailTel employees to fight this deadly disease has also been made.

Team RailTel stand in solidarity with its countrymen in this fight and pledges to implement all precautionary measure to stop the spread of COVID 19.

―CT Bureau

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