Indian railways on the track of development

News:

In a press conference addressed by Member Electrical, Railway Board Navin Tandon, said that in order to improve the Indian railways certain initiatives have been taken.  The initiatives are as follows:

• Electrification

With a view to reduce its energy procurement cost as well as to make the Railway System more eco-friendly and to modernize the system, Indian Railways have been progressively electrifying its rail routes.

• Highest ever 1375 Route Kilometres (RKM) electrified in 2014-15. Thus, 26269 RKM of Indian Railway tracks (39.92%) are now electrified.
• 28 nos. new Railway Electrification projects covering 6608 (RKM) with total estimated cost of Rs. 6746.45 crore sanctioned in this year budget.
• Target for current year (2015-16) of XII Plan is 1670 RKM with fund allotment of Rs. 2163 Cr including Rs 560 Cr through Extra Budgetary Resources i.e PPP and Institutional Financing.
• 1500 V DC to 25kV AC Traction conversion in Mumbai: Kurla – CSTM section completed and test charged in December’2014 and is expected to be commissioned on 25 kV AC traction in 2015-16. Thus about 1190 TKM out of total 1680 TKM have been commissioned on 25 kV AC electric traction.
• InfrastructureThe Financial bid for procurement cum maintenance of 12000 HP high capacity locomotives and setting up of a factory at Madhepura will be opened on 31 August.
• Out of 800 locomotives to be procured 795 will be Made in India which will be mainly working in the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor and out of 200 locos to be procured 40 would be imported from Japan and 60 will be assembled from CKD/SKD kits. Last 100 locos would be manufactured in CLWs Unit at Dankuni with Japanese TOT.
• Rolling stockAmong the EMU, metro and conventional passenger coaches divisions, the Railways is planning to introduce a very modern train system called Train-Sets for providing superior riding experience and about 20% saving in journey time. The procurement process for 15 trains set has been initiated.
• Electric locomotivesCLW Produced 250 electric locos in 2014-15, increasing the total holding of electric locomotives to 5,049, out of which 862 locomotives are 3-phase. CLW plans to turn out last conventional loco in November 2015 and last GTO based 3-phase locomotive in October 2015. Thereafter only energy efficient, environment friendly IGBT based 3-Phase locomotives will be manufactured.
• Trails of semi-high speed trains up to 160 km/h have been successfully conducted with WAP-5 locos between NDLS – AGC section.
• A major achievement for ‘Green India’, two WAP-7 locos equipped with hotel load system have been turned out from CLW during 2014-15 and now there are 04 such electric  locos equipped with  hotel load system under trials thereby avoiding power car working, and creating clean/green environment as well as diesel fuel saving.
• Passenger amenitiesWi-Fi internet facility has been provided at 9 ‘A1’ category stations namely Agra Cantonment., Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, CST Mumbai, Howrah, New Delhi, Secunderabad and Varanasi during the year. It is being planned to provide Wi-Fi facility at many other A1 and other important stations also.
• Integrated Security System (ISS) at 6 stations and additionally CCTV system at 10 Railway stations has been commissioned during last year.  Cumulatively, ISS at 64 stations and CCTV system at 21 stations commissioned. As a part of the ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’, the cleanliness activities monitored through the CCTV cameras.
• Thirty-six escalators and 5 lifts were installed at railway stations in the last year. Further, it has been planned to install 100 escalators and 100 lifts in current year.
• Mobile charging facilities would be provided in general class coaches and the number of charging facilities would be increased in sleeper class coaches. 3000 general and sleeper class coaches would be provided with 18 mobile charging points during 2015-16.
• Electrical energy managementAmong the initiatives taken and action plans made to reduce cost of power procurement through bilateral arrangements and open access mechanism, 50 MW power in NC Railway from DVC resulted in saving of Rs 10.57 crore in March 15; annual saving of Rs 100 crore per year is expected.
• To have arrangements for longer periods through market mechanism, tenders floated to procure 50 MW in NCR, 440 MW for western, 220 MW for northern and 350 MW for eastern regions.  First tender of 50 MW will be open on 8 June and the rest by July 2016.
• Renewable energy sources: 10 MW solar power plants have already installed. An order for a 2 MW plant has been issued; that for another 4.5 MW plant is in progress. The department has been asked to plan 50 MW on roof tops of railway buildings. A general coach with about 4 KW solar panels has been working in Northern Railway since December 2014.
• 10.5 MW of wind power plants have already been installed. Tendering for 10.5 MW is in progress. Contract for a provision of 25 MW in Rajasthan has been awarded.

• Energy efficiency

Railways will conduct 150 energy audits. As per the report of BEE, Indian Railways saved 3.3% on traction and non-traction energy last year, which amounts to a saving of about Rs.400 crores.

• As part of the project of improving energy efficiency in Railways’ residential quarters under CDM (CFL distribution project), a total of 14 lakh CFLs were installed in Railway quarters by replacing incandescent bulbs. The project has earned total 2,48,609 carbon credits (CERs) till now, out of which 1,38,493 carbon credits (CERs) were earned in 2014-15.

• Signalling

To enhance efficiency and safety in train operation, modern electrical and electronic interlocking system with central panel and complete track circuiting and MACLS have been provided at 245 stations during 2014-15. Panel or electronic interlocking system has been provided at 5,336 stations (85% of total interlocked stations.

• For safety of road users, 290 LC gates interlocked with signals were put in place during 2014-15.
• During 2014-15, TPWS have been commissioned on DumDum-Kavi Subhash section of Kolkata Metro (25 km) and TPWS trials completed with 35 locomotives in Delhi-Agra section at 130 km/h and 160 km/h. The decision has been communicated recently to railway zones to execute sanctioned TPWS works on 1244 Rkm of automatic signalling sections where EMUs ply.
• A pilot project for indigenous development of Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) as a multi-vendor, interoperable cost-effective system is being carried out by the RDSO.
• Centralised Traffic Control (CTC) consolidates train routing decisions that were previously carried out by local operators. During 2014-15, CTC system has been installed at Tundla (NCR) & testing of 7 Stations completed for centralised and more efficient control of traffic in GZB-CNB section.

Source: Sirf News