The Indian Railways has set itself a target of 100% electrification by 2023 with 60% of railway line already electrified. While LED lighting is 100 per cent, solar panels have been provided at majority of railway stations and service buildings to draw renewable energy, said Railway Board Additional Member Manju Gupta on Wednesday.
Addressing the ‘National Green Rail Seminar’, a three-day professional training programme for railway officers from November 13 to November 15 here, she said 800 railway stations all over the nation had been provided with airport standard lighting.
SCR’s Additional General Manager B.B. Singh said several steps were being taken towards improvement of greenery, rejuvenation of old wells, water bodies etc. Indian railways stood as one of the greatest contributors of environment protection by meeting 10% of its energy requirements through renewable sources of energy.
About one crore saplings were being planted every year to improve the green cover and so far around 15,000 sq.km of land had been provided with green cover, he added. Top railway officials were present at the meet.
At a separate meeting in Nanded, SCR GM Gajanan Mallya said gauge conversion work on Akola-Akot section and electrification work on Parbhani-Mudkhed, Adilabad-Parbhani and Akola-Purna section were in progress.
The SCR had commissioned doubling work for a distance of 50 km on the Parbhani-Mudkhed section and the remaining 30 km of doubling work would be completed by February, 2020, he told a meeting of MPs of the Nanded division.
The MPs, who participated in the meeting, were Syed Imtiaz Jaleel, Nandkumar Singh Chauhan, Sanjay Jadhav, Prataprao Govindrao Patil Chikhalikar and Hemant Patil.
