Aim To Run The Entire Rail Network On Electricity, Says Piyush Goyal

The government has plans to run India’s entire rail network on electricity to cut down on pollution and its diesel bill, said Union Railway Minister Piyush Goel.

The ministry is working towards electrification of nearly 17,000 km of tracks over the next five years and will gradually bring the rest under its electrified network, said the minister.

“The big one here is the effort to convert the entire Indian Railways into a 100-percent electricity-driven railways,” said the minister at an Indo-American Chamber of Commerce event in Mumbai on Tuesday. Once achieved, the efforts will help the national transporter slash its diesel expenses by half to nearly Rs 8,000 crore, he said.

The railways will also focus to ramp up renewable energy by installing light-weight solar panels on the rakes and railway stations, he said.

The newly appointed minister also said that safety and infrastructure is another priority for him. “Going forward, we would like to scale up investments in railways because I do see railways as a catalyst for economic growth in the country.”

Goyal, who is also the minister of coal, said the government will resolve the complaints of erratic supply of coal to power plants by October. In March, the coal stock in the country had shot up to record 68 million, prompting the government to regulate supply. The demand for the fossil fuel, however, went up later due to fall in supply from hydro, wind and other sources.

On whether the government would restore the coal cess, which got subsumed into the Goods and Services Tax, Goyal said the levy was introduced with the twin objectives of to fund and promote renewable energy and for fair pricing of thermal power generation.