The Minister of State for Railways Shri Naran Bhai J. Rathwa has called upon the Railway officers to make use of latest technologies in all fields of Railways for efficient functioning and for meeting the satisfaction level of Rail users. Shri Rathwa was speaking at the two-day Conference of Chief Electrical Engineers of all Zonal Railways and Production Units, which began here today. The Minister said that Indian Railways achieved the higher ever target of freight loading of 728 million tonnes and expressed the hope that the Railways will succeed in achieving the ambitious target of 800 million tonnes during this financial year. Under scoring the importance of electrification in meeting this target, the Minister pointed out that Electrical Department is the backbone of Indian Railways, as it constitutes about 65 per cent of the freight and about 50 per cent of the passenger traffic.
Appreciating the efforts and contribution of electrical department, the Minister pointed out that reliability and availability of the electrical assets have improved in a big way and touched an all time high. The Minister said that the performance of electrical assents has further improved by over by 19 per cent during the period April-July 2007, which enabled Railways to haul higher traffic and achieve the target. Underlining the significance of the state–of–the-art three phases electrical locos, the Minister said that the new factory which is coming up at Madheypura for this purpose should be set up early so that the deficit of electrical locomotive is timely met. He said that Indian Railways has planned and initiate action to set up workshop with the state-of-the-art facility at Baroda to undertake periodic over hauling of three-phase locomotives. The Minister also stressed the need to improve the working environment of Railways running staff. He suggested to further improving the cabs of the existing locomotives for better ambiance and stress free working so as to match the international standards.
The Minister also suggested that railways should plan to introduce air condition EMU service for Mumbai area as a pilot project and then use the results for future expansion of such services. He said that presently 17811 route kilometers of track has been electrified which constitute about 28 per cent of the total Indian Railways network and efforts should be continued to electrify more tracks in view of the economical and environment friendly nature of electric traction. He urged them to closely monitor the projects of electrification for their timely completion.
Addressing the conference, the Minister of State for Railways Shri R.Velu said that it is high time when Railways have to take measures to be competitive reducing its operating expenses. He emphasized the need to induct additional rakes to improve EMU suburban services in Mumbai area and ask to expedite the trials of fast prototype rake of AC /DC EMU for final induction into service. The Minister said that new MEMU have bee sanctioned at Palghat, Kurda Raod and Qulin. He said that electrification of sidings is very useful, as diesel locomotives released from these sidings will be deployed for more productive main line operations. He said that Union Cabinet has approved setting up of 1000 mega watt captive power plant with joint venture with NTPC during 2007-08, which will go a long way in making cheap electricity available for Railways. He said that windmill project for generating 10-mega watt power being planned at Chennai is a welcome step. He called upon to plan similar projects utilizing renewable sources of energy so as to generate electricity with minimal of running expenditure.
The two day conference is deliberating on issues of electrification, production of electric locomotives, improvement in the passenger amenities like train lighting and air conditioning, punctuality performance of electric trains, suburban EMU/MEMU services, energy conservation etc. The other senior officials who addressed the conference included Chairman, Railway Board Shri Ramesh Chandra, Member Traffic Shri V.N. Mathur and Member Mechanical Shri R.K.Rao.
AKS/HK/TR
(Release ID :30676)