This would help in giving online information pertaining to movement of trains, coach maintenance, signalling arrangements, electrical overheads and operations of departments, said J Srinivas, Southern Railways' senior EDP manager.

Speaking to The Financial Express, he said computerisation work would be complete in a couple of months.

The project will be wholly-funded by the Asian Development Bank, Manila, in the form of soft loans at around six per cent per annum. Till date, for Southern Railways as much as Rs 4 crore has been sanctioned for the project.

The Railways has already entered into an agreement with a Bangalore-based company, Faculty India System and Services Ltd, for the development of software. The IT firm has completed the development work in materials, finance, payroll segments. However, workwith regard to operations and maintenance department is yet to be finished.

With about 70 per cent of the software development complete, the Railways will call for tenders for hardware networking soon, Srinivas said.The computerisation process will also involve networking with the local terminals of the Railways. This would mean that the central terminal will be integrated with the ones currently located in the Moore Market Complex, GM office, NGO office and the office in Ayanavaram in Chennai.