11th UIC World Security Congress – 9th & 10th December-2015 at New Delhi

The 11th UIC Global Security Congress is being organized by the Security Directorate of Indian Railways in collaboration with International Union of Railways (UIC), headquartered in Paris. The conference is scheduled to be held at New Delhi on 9th & 10th December-2015 and will be attended by Security Chiefs of the Railway Systems of various countries apart from representatives of UIC, Indian Railways, police and security agencies of India. Mr. Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, Director-General of the International Union of Railways (UIC) and delegates of member countries would be attending.

The Minister of Railways Sh. Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu will be the Chief Guest at the inaugural session of the conference. Shri. A.K.Mittal, Chairman of Indian Railways will address and Dr. P.K.Mishra, Addl. PS to PMO will be delivering the key note address on 9th December-2015.

International Union of Railways (UIC) is the professional association in existence from 1922, representing the railway sector and promoting rail transport worldwide. There are 06 UIC regional assemblies for Africa, Asia, North America, South America, Europe and Middle-East. UIC is on a mission to promote interoperability and standardization of rail transport, increase cooperation and sharing of best practices, support members in new business and new areas of activities, and to propose improved technical and environmental performance of rail transport, improve competitiveness and reduce costs.

On 8 December 2009, the UIC Executive Board and General Assembly decided to additionally focus on 5 key areas to be developed in the interest of the worldwide railway community namely Environment, Safety and Security, Signalling, Freight / Freight Corridors and Standardization.

The security platform was created by the Executive Board of UIC in June-2006 and was restructured in 2008 at Global Level. This security platform is responsible for organizing such international events from time to time on the issues defending common interest of UIC members in the security field, promoting the exchange of information and experiences among the Security Directors of UIC members, proposed common interest, index projects at Global and regional level as dictated by members’ requirements or external event.

The chair of security platform is held by security chiefs of railways of member countries by rotation. Shri Rajiva Ranjan Verma, Director General/Railway Protection Force (RPF) is the present Chief of UIC security platform. The last edition of the UIC Global Security Congress was organized in Lisbon, Portugal in the year 2014. It focused on the concept of “comprehensive rail system protection”. In India, two earlier security events were organized by Indian Railways (RPF) in collaboration with UIC in Delhi & Mumbai in the year 2006 & 2010. In Delhi, the focus was on growing challenges of Terrorism in global railways, while in Mumbai it focused on security challenges and high speed developments.

This year, the conference with the title agenda, “Security of Rail Systems, Operations and Business Activities”, will focus on:-

Asia-pacific regional security issues and consequent challenges to railway systems.

Growing complexity of railway system and the importance of the security in achieving short, medium and long term goals.

Resource constraints and burden of expectations on security agencies, especially in the context of South Asia.

Preparing for crisis management and mitigation of consequences of incidents in railways.

Passenger security issues: Problems and Solutions.

Freight Security issues: Problems and Solutions.

Presentations on topics/ factors affecting rail security in India, such as, ‘fidayeen’ attack, crime trends on Indian Railways, security of women passengers, child trafficking, complexities of rail security management, crisis management, crowd management, VIP security, cyber terrorism against railways, security of freight, etc, are to be presented during the Conference by foreign and domestic domain experts. A panel discussion on ‘International Cooperation in developing best practices, implementation of modern technology and training of personnel’ is also on the agenda.