Nine stations of South Central Railway (SCR) — Secunderabad, Hyderabad, Kacheguda, Vijayawada, Nizamabad, Kurnool, Basar, Vikarabad and Parli Vaijnath — have been awarded with the prestigious Environmental Standard ISO 14001:2015 certification for implementing environmental management system.
The ISO 14001 certification is issued to the stations fulfilling the laid down standards in provision of services and amenities for transportation of passengers and maintenance of cleanliness of railway station premises and timely disposal of garbage to the municipal authority concerned.
Solid waste management includes maintaining cleanliness, disposal of solid waste, pet bottle shredders, anti-littering, water conservation, energy conservation, installation of solar energy, developing green belt and implementing zero waste management, among others. General Manager Gajanan Mallya complimented the engineering team and other officials for the achievement and called for improving standards of environment management system for getting certification for some more stations.
Railway stations are mass contact areas and maintaining environment friendly atmosphere enables comfortable and convenient flow of passengers in all aspects, he pointed out. Recently, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed the Indian Railways to identify 36 stations to be developed as ‘eco-smart’ stations by achieving green environment standards. The SCR then had identified three stations — Secunderabad, Kacheguda and Vijayawada.
Among the norms laid down by NGT is getting ISO 14001 certification from the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). Accordingly, all the three identified railway stations to be developed as ‘eco-smart stations and are now in receipt of ISO 14001:2015 certification complying the NGT norm, added CPRO Ch. Rakesh.
Energy conservation awards
In a related issue, SCR had also bagged four national energy conservation awards from Bureau of Energy Efficiency/Ministry of Power with first prize to Lekha Bhavan and three certificate of merit awards for the entire zone, Kacheguda station and electric traction training centre - Vijayawada.
Union Minister of State for Power R. K. Singh presented the awards to principal chief electrical engineer A.A. Phadke and divisional railway manager N.S.R. Prasad at a function held at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi on the weekend.
Mr. Mallya said the awards were possible because of use of solar energy, use of LED fittings in place of higher wattage fittings, energy-efficient pumps, occupancy sensors, star-labelled electrical equipment, inverter AC units, timers for water coolers/rolling examination lights, etc.
