The 8th APNRTC (Asia Pacific Network of Rail Training Centres) meeting hosted by Indian Railways took place in New Delhi, on 8 and 9 October 2015.
APNRTC (Asia Pacific Network of Rail Training Centres) is a network of training and HR experts and executives, as well as colleagues duly appointed by their companies to represent activity.
The yearly meeting of the APNRTC is the opportunity to visit a different training facility every year and exchange best practices between the members. It is also the place to discuss the work programme for the forthcoming years(s), as well as to identify synergies with the other working groups taking place in the frame of the UIC Expertise Development activity.
Although the meeting was not attended by all regular members due to immigration and administrative problems, fruitful discussions took place between the participating members (delegations from India (IR), Korea (IRaTCA – International Rail Training Centre for UIC Asia-Pacific) and Russia (MIIT - Moscow State University of Railway Engineering), as well as UIC HQ.
Mr Manoj Pande, Executive Director of T&MPP at IR opened the meeting with his warm welcome address to the participants, introduced an overview of IR and emphasised the importance of training at IR.
A. K. Mital, Chairman of the Railway Board of IR, welcomed delegates and mentioned IR’s need for capacity enhancement, importance of HR and development of interdisciplinary courses. He also expressed his wish of successful meeting.
Nathalie Amirault, Head of the Expertise Development Unit at UIC, expressed her gratitude to IR’s hosts on behalf of the Director General of UIC and of APNRTC members for organising the meeting in Delhi. She emphasised the importance of such regular expert meetings and exchange of good practices on railway training.
Mr Rajnish Kumar, Professor of IT at the National Academy of Indian Railways, Vadodora, introduced knowledge management on IR through the Knowledge Portal (http://irkportal.com) that is expected to stimulate knowledge sharing and connection among experts both inside and outside IR.
Mr R. K. Palhan, Retd GM, IR, explained IR’s unique practice on stress management “YAM” – Yoga and Meditation and provided an outstanding result in terms of decrease of incidents and accidents.
Ms Nathalie Amirault provided an update on Expertise Development activities at UIC including the TALENT project, open training courses at both global level and regional level, the World Congress on Rail Training, as well at EDP (Expertise Development Platform) working groups.
Mr Evgeny Zarechkin from MIIT, reported on the training session held by MIIT in July 2015.
Mr Yong Wook SON at IRaTCA presented the forthcoming training session “maintenance in rolling stock” which will take place in week 43 in IRaTCA, Seoul.
Mr Vikrant Kalra at IRISET, Mr Anjani Kumar at JR RPF, Mr Samir Lohani at IRMEE and Mr H. R. Khandekar at IREEN introduced their training activities.
After the introduction or report on activities of participants, the participants discussed topics for the training sessions in 2016 and beyond.
It was agreed to propose the following topics for Asia Pacific countries in 2016:
- Training on passenger and freight rail systems by MIIT
- Training on High speed Rail Systems by IRaTCA
A list of topics for 2017 was also discussed and it was decided to circulate it amongst all network’s members for final decision.
Two projects were also discussed “rail job profiles” which is submitted to the next APRA (Asia Pacific Regional Assembly) for a start in 2016 and simulation training which has already started in the frame of the Expertise Development Platform and which is planned as a multi-regional project starting from 2017.
The delegates also participated in the technical visit to a control centre of Delhi Metro and its training centre as well as cultural visit to old Delhi.
