Hundreds of policies have surfaced over the last decade to minimize the energy consumption of Indian Railways but nothing substantial had surfaced yet. But the in the last couple of years, something major has happened. Every year the energy consumption, by this amazing service of Indian government, is increasing by 5%. Every rail budget adds more routes, which evidently consumes more energy. But steps have been made by the authorities to switch to more environment-friendly, more sustainable and economically sound options in their renewable energy plans.
1. Indian Railways plans to build stations that run on wind and solar energy. About 50 stations in the country are already solar powered. This saves around 7.2 lakhs per year. Railway stations like Perugamani, Thiruvananthapuram, Ratnagiri are examples of such usage of Solar energy.
2. Other than the stations, Indian Railways have installed around 63000 Solar Panels on the top of rail coaches. On June 2015, the first solar powered coaches ran on the Rewarri-Sitapur, Pathankot-Jogindernagar and Kalka-Shimla lines. The panels powered the lighting requirements of the train.
3. In 2013, the Indian Railways stated that it is developing trains that run on LNG. This move by the railways has reportedly dropped the operation cost to 50% of its original.
4. Water conservation and re-using water is a major and one of the foremost ways with which Indian Railways move towards sustainability. In Mumbai’s Lokmaniya Tilak Terminus, rainwater harvesting yields up to 40% of its water requirement. There are more than 50 such stations in India that do this kind of work.
5. It’s been ages since a particular joke is floating that Indian Railway tracks are the longest toilet in the world. So to end this shady joke and for obvious reasons, the Indian Railways plan to phase out conventional toilets on all of its train coaches by 2020, and replace them with eco-friendly biodegradable toilet systems. As of now, there are about 17000 coaches that have these toilets. Suresh Prabhu, the Indian Railway Minister, said that Railways plan to set up ‘waste to energy’ conversion plants near major coaching terminals to dispose waste in an environment-friendly manner.
Inputs from The Better India.
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