Indian Railways may be a Green Railway by 2030

The Ministry of Railways has announced that it is taking steps for going completely green by the year 2030. The strategy is in line with their target of achieving net-zero carbon emission with initiatives that will involve the electrification of the railways, and improve energy efficiency, amongst many others.

However, there is some scepticism around this as around a decade back, they had announced several other green initiatives which did not quite pan out. For instance, extracting oil from jatropha seeds to move towards a green fuel option of biodiesel.

The Indian Railways has said that they have completed electrification of more than 40,000 Route Km (RKM). Also, around 69,000 coaches have been fitted with more than 2, 44,000 bio-toilets. However, not everything is hunky-dory with the bio-toilets system. In the year 2016-17 around two lakh complaints were registered regarding the overflowing and non-functional bio-toilets which many passengers said were never cleaned.