The Konkan Railway Corporation Limited has launched a new attempt to re-sell its sky bus technology, an indigenous railway project which met ill-fate in 2004.
Aimed at 'decongesting' the traffic in populated cities, the project envisages the railway boogies running on elevated track set on a series of eight-metre-high pillars.
"The corporation will sign a memorandum of understanding with Research Design and Standard Organisation next month which will facilitate the certification of the project," KRCLs public relation manager Baban Ghatge told PTI this morning.
The RDSO is the sole research and development organisation of Indian Railway and functions as a technical advisory body to railway board, zonal railways and production units.
Ghatge said that the certification is required to sell the project commercially.
The ambitious Rs 50-crore (Rs 500-million) sky bus technology underwent test runs till September 2004 on a specially built 1.6 km-long self stabilising track at Madgao junction before it met with an accident killing an engineer.
A bogie,travelling at a speed of 80 kilometres per hour, rammed into a pillar throwing out two engineers, one of whom died in the hospital.
The project, funded through a consortium of 34 Indian companies, was a brainchild of then KRCL managing director B Rajaram.
Ghatge said that current managing director Anurag Mishra during his ongoing Goa visit has revealed the corporation's plans to get the sky bus project back on tracks.
The new concept in indigenous technology is also facing a hurdle as it is still unclear whether it falls in ambit of union surface transport ministry or railway ministry.
