India / All railway routes to be 100% electrified in 3.5 yrs: Piyush Goyal

Deccan Herald : Jul 16, 2020, 06:35 PM
New Delhi: Indian Railways will move to 100 per cent electrification in the next 3.5 years, said Minister of Railways Piyush Goyal here on Thursday.

“Railways will move to 100 per cent electrification in next 3.5 years & 100 per cent ‘Net Zero’ operator in next 9-10 years. By 2030, each one of us will be a proud citizen, owning the world’s first large ‘Clean Railways’,” the minister said while addressing a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) event through video conferencing.

The railways is taking number of steps to net zero carbon emission including electrification, improving energy efficiency of locomotives & trains and fixed installations, green certification for installations/stations, fitting bio-toilets in coaches and switching to renewable energy sources, the Minister said.

The railways plans electrification of all routes on Broad Gauge by December 2023 and has already completed electrification of more than 40,000 RKM (route km). As much as 365 km of major connectivity work in electrification has been commissioned during even during the Covid-19 period.

“PM has promoted ‘One Sun, One World, One Grid’. India is taking lead role in International Renewable Community. Transitioning into international solar grid is something we are all working on. With PM-KUSUM Yojana we are bringing farmers too in renewable energy fold,” Goyal said.

The railway has 51,000 hectares of land potential of installing 20 GW land based solar plants. One project of 1.7 MW at Bina in collaboration with BHEL has already been installed, railways earlier said.

The national transporter already completed 100 per cent LED illumination of buildings and stations.

A total of 69,000 coaches have been fitted with 2,44,000 bio-toilets in Indian Railways, said a statement.

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