Indian Railways Plans to Install 1 GW Solar Capacity by 2020-21

Ministry of Railways has announced that it plans to set up 1000 MW solar power by 2020-21 which would assist Railways to source about 10% of its electrical energy from renewable source, Minister of State of Railways, Rajen Gohain said in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha.

Indian Railways has an existing capacity of 71.19 MW of Solar plants from rooftops solar installations at several railways stations and service buildings.

Wind energy plants of 36.5 MW have been installed out of which, 26 MW at Jaisalmer was installed in 2015-2016.

All electrified Railway stations (except for those under gauge conversion) and 99% of service buildings have been fixed with 100% LED luminaries over Indian railways.

Apart from this, rate of installation of environment friendly bio-toilets in passenger coaches has been augmented. Nearly 163,000 bio-toilets have been installed in around 44,500 coaches, out of which more than 127,000 bio-toilets were installed in around 33,500 coaches since April, 2016.

Rate of electrification has been amplified. As on 1st April, 2018, 30,212 Route Kilometers (RKM) of Indian Railways are electrified out of which 5,733 RKM was done in two years 2016-17 and 2017-18. Electrification work is in progress on 33,658 Route Kilometers.

In 2016, a policy decision was taken for assigning 1% cost in all authorized works for implementation of environment related works.