NLC India has been tasked with covering vacant land of the Railways with solar power generation set-ups.
According to The Hindu, addressing the World Mining Congress, Minister for Railways and Coal Piyush Goyal said that the Railways are going to tie up with NLC and have them put up solar power generation equipment at their investment. The Railways will buy the power out of that.
While the agreement for this deal has not yet been signed, Goyal said the broad framework for the same had already been prepared. He said: “Wherever we have railway land, I want NLC to put up the solar plants so that I can save them from encroachers.” Enumerating the terms of the agreement to be signed between the two, Goyal said that the railways have existing platforms that need to be expanding on both sides because we are going in for longer rakes. “NLC will do the same, create a roof over the platform extension, and we will have a different rate of power for the investment they will be doing for that”, he added.
“The third thing we have agreed upon is that whenever we need the land, NLC will shift the equipment somewhere else. If it is during the payback period, NLC can shift it at the cost of the Railways,” he added. NLC India’s website says that the company had moved from an only lignite mining and power generation company to become an energy company. The company currently has a total power generation capacity (including joint ventures) of 4,301 MW. The company aims to have a generation capacity of 16,673 MW with 3,990 MW coming from solar energy.
