South Central Railway, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary, has attained a new landmark towards environmental protection and efficiency of services with the Hyderabad-Narsapur Express commencing its run with electric locomotive haulage from Wednesday, becoming the first train service to run on the newly electrified Bibinagar-Nallapadu section.
This was announced by General Manager Gajanan Mallya at the ‘Sewa Diwas’ organised at the Hyderabad railway station to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on Wednesday. The station has been awarded with ‘ISO 14001’ certification on Tuesday.
The General Manager spoke of SCR’s resolve to undertake environment sustainability measures with 54 plastic bottle crushing machines installed at 35 major railway stations, 35 sanitary napkin incinerators and napkin dispensers set up at 28 stations. Effluent treatment plants, solid waste management and air pollution monitoring is being done across the zone, he informed. The mission is also on to get green rating certifications for railway stations, service buildings, workshops, training centres etc., he said
Nurseries were being developed at various locations on all divisions, said Mr. Mallya and appealed to the railway users to help the railways in the endeavour to stop single-use plastic material. A signature campaign was launched at the station and he also boarded the trains to interact with rail users encouraging them to maintain cleanliness and stay away from using plastic bags.
A “green rail station” campaign too was launched with planting of saplings at various places in and around Hyderabad station. He inspected waiting halls, food outlets and stressed on the need for railway staff to be pro-active in leading the ban on single use plastic. The GM also donated blood as part of the blood donation camp at Central Railway Hospital, Lallaguda along with other officials and staff.
