We welcome you to the great Indian Rail Idea Bazaar, a 2-month exercise, which is being held in all the 17 railway zones across India. The idea is to build a bank of ideas contributed by each of the 13 lakh odd employees of the Indian Railways (IR). The crowdsourcing exercise stipulates one new idea at least on what if they become India’s Railway Minister. The format doesn’t follow any hierarchy – right from a railway gangman to a GM – everyone’s involved.
You’ll be surprised and glad to know that as many as 1.1 lakh new ideas have poured in until November 1 in the Rail Bhawan. Of these, a panel of seven joint-secretary rank officers have already shortlisted about 1,400 ideas, and internally “patented” those to avoid any duplicates.
![Indian Railways: 1.1 lakh ideas poured in so far for Indian Railways' biggest ever brainstorm on Nov 18 -20](http://img.etimg.com/photo/55267337/cover1.jpg)
PC: Economic Times
The 2-month long exercise has been kept under cover, as the Indian Railways has plans to present 15 shortlisted ideas as a business plan in front of PM Modi during a railway offsite scheduled between November 18 and November 20 at Surajkund, Haryana.
![Indian Railways: 1.1 lakh ideas poured in so far for Indian Railways' biggest ever brainstorm on Nov 18 -20](http://img.etimg.com/photo/55267349/cover2.jpg)
PC: Economic Times
![Indian Railways: 1.1 lakh ideas poured in so far for Indian Railways' biggest ever brainstorm on Nov 18 -20](http://img.etimg.com/photo/55267355/gang1.jpg)
PC: Economic Times
![Indian Railways: 1.1 lakh ideas poured in so far for Indian Railways' biggest ever brainstorm on Nov 18 -20](http://img.etimg.com/photo/55267437/gang3.jpg)
PC: Economic Times
Vikas Shivir, yes, that’s the name of the event that is being held to showcase the collective ideas of IR employees to both top rail officials and Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu. The tagline of the event will be “Why settle for ordinary when excellence is achievable”.