- Indian Railways had set the target of 100 per cent electrification of its tracks by 2022
- Railways were reducing its diesel cost inputs by electrifying its tracks on a large scale and will also produce solar energy on its vacant land
Efforts are on to make Indian Railways the first Green Railways in the world in the next 10 years with steps like setting up solar energy installations on its unutilised land, electrification of tracks and moving to bio-diesel, minister Piyush Goyal told Rajya Sabha.
The minister said the Railways had set the target of 100 per cent electrification of its tracks by 2022. He informed the House that Railways were reducing its diesel cost inputs by electrifying its tracks on a large scale and will also produce solar energy on its vacant land.
Plan of execution
On the question of how this will be executed, Goyal stated that the government is aiming to produce power from such solar installations and feed that into the grid and use that for the Railways.
He informed that the Indian Railways was fast electrifying its tracks and was regularly bringing its diesel inputs down. However, there will still be some tracks like in border areas and in narrow gauge where it will continue to use diesel. As a solution, the minister stated that the government is also working towards the use of biodiesel or environmentally friendly materials instead of diesel on such tracks.
