Indian Railways Will Be Fully Electrified By 2020; Diesel Engines Are Out!

Railways Minister Piyush Goel means business now.

During an event, he confirmed that diesel engines would be abolished in India, and every train and route would be electrified by 2020.

How will it benefit the system?

Approximately Rs 11,000 crore would be saved, and environment would be protected, if Indian Railways achieves 100% electrification promise.

No More Diesel Engines Now!

Maintenance and operating costs of traditional diesel engines are too much, and running trains on diesels is proving to be increasingly infeasible for Indian Railways.

Now, Indian Rail has decided that the time has come for completely removing diesel engines from the tracks, and relying on 100% electric trains from now on.

And the deadline has been set: 2020.

Minister Goel said,

“We don’t want to burden our passengers and freight customers by raising costs. Through bringing efficiency in the existing system, we can reduce operational costs and provide better services to our users,”, adding, “We’ll only use diesel locomotives for backup.”

How This Will Help Indian Railways?

At present, Indian Railways spend around Rs 18000 crore on diesel expenses, per year, whereas expense for electricity for running trains is Rs 9000 crore. Out of 19000 trains currently, 5000 run on diesel, which consume 500 crore of fuel every year.

Although electrification of train routes has been going on since long, but still, at the time of writing, there are 30,000 kms of train tracks, which are still not electrified.

As per the new determination and vision, these remaining 30,000 kms of non-electrified route would be converted into electric route, thereby saving Rs 18,000 crore in diesel expenses, besides saving in maintenance and operating costs.

As per reports, if all the 19,000 trains currently running in India convert into electric mode, then Rs 16,000 crore would be the cost of procuring electricity.

Hence, Rs 16000 crore would be saved directly, if 100% electrification happens by 2020.

Recently, the Minister had said,

“We are giving a relook to the ways of speeding up the electrification process of rail lines across the country. The cost on account of power is quite less and so we can do a lot of savings in that..”

Govt. has allocated Rs 35,000 crore budget for electrification of remaining routes.

We will keep you updated, as we receive more inputs regarding this news.