The ever-so ambitious Indian Railways has been planning something bigger than ever before as it is aiming to become the world’s first 100 per cent ‘green railways’!
The news was confirmed by the Minister of Railways and Commerce & Industry, Piyush Goyal, who spoke about the government’s master plan to make the national transporter environment-friendly. He reportedly added the Indian Railways is planning to widen the use of solar energy.
According to Piyush Goyal, the Railway is planning to set up solar panels on unused railway lands. He reportedly said, “This will serve a dual purpose. Firstly, the land will be saved from encroachment, and the energy generated will be fed into the power grid.”
The Railway Minister also said that the implementation of the massive project will take time because it is not any “normal program”
Previously this year, Railway Ministry announced its plans to invest a whopping Rs 18,000 crore on solar power units along tracks. Piyush Goyal believes that 10 years from now, Indian Railways might become the world’s first 100% ‘Green Railways’.
Goyal further added that the Indian Railways was planning on electrification of tracks and using biodiesel to give grounds for the ‘Green Railways’ project.
Coming to electrification plans, Railway minister said that 100 per cent electrification of tracks will be ideally achieved by the year 2022. According to records, in the 2017-18, Indian Railways electrified more than 4,000 km of train tracks and in 2018-19, the distance went above 5200 km.
Goyal also opened up that Indian Railways is planning to have every train come through electric traction that comes to the national capital, which might happen soon.
Indian Railways speeds up 261 trains under ‘Mission Raftaar’, 49 new trains added:
In a massive development, Indian Railways has now speeded up 261 trains under Mission Raftaar by up to 110 minutes over different zones across the nation in order to offer fast transport services to passengers.
‘Mission Raftaar’ was announced in the Railway Budget 2016-17 and predicts a target of doubling up an average speed of freight trains and accelerating the average speed of all non-suburban passenger trains by over 25 kmph in the next five years.
As many as 49 new trains, which have already been inducted have been added in the new time table. Vande Bharat Express train, 34 Humsafar Express trains, 11 Antyodaya Express trains, two Tejas Express trains and one Uday Express train are among the list of special trains.
The national transporter has also made the best use of the rolling stock. A review of the lie over periods of rakes at various destinations disclosed that rakes of some of the trains remained idle at the terminals.
Some of these have now been made use for offering 40 new services, an extension of 21 services and to expand the frequency of 8 services. All these have been implemented in the new Railway time table.
The railways also added that it has replaced 141 short distance passenger trains, particularly, the ones having reversal en route, by Mainline Electric Multiple Units (MEMUs) and Diesel Electric Multiple Units (DEMUs) in 2018-2019, as a result, increasing the total mobility of the system.