Railways to start GPS tagging of 300,000 Wagons

The Indian Railways is set to initiate Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking of each of its nearly 300,000 wagons under a plan to prevent pilferages on the national transporter.

As part of the Wagon GPS (WGPS) Project, the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) has invited expressions of interest for participating in knowledge gathering exercise for the determination of location on-run of the freight wagons of Indian Railways using Satellite Navigation System.

Officials said instances of "missing wagons" and theft of goods from open wagons have been a long-standing concern of the railways. This leads to disputes with entities that use the railways network for freight transport. Even when goods trains cross the Indian borders, there have been cases where their return to the country is delayed.


While instances of wagons going missing are rare, considering the volume of goods movement on the railways, they have been significant enough to raise concerns. In August, ET had reported one such instance where 8,000 tonnes of coal rejects (by-products of coal washing that have some residue calorific value) from Jharkhand ended up in Madhya Pradesh.