OREANDA-NEWS. The Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu along with Minister of State for Railways Shri Manoj Sinha commissioned 30 kW Solar Plant at roof top of Rail Bhawan at New Delhi, yesterday. On the occasion, Shri Prabhu envisioned that Railways is planning to harness solar energy in a big way which will be a step forward in mitigating the challenges currently being experienced by our environment. He stressed the need to expedite provision of solar plants at other Railway buildings also preferably in public private partner model. This plant, capable of sourcing power to about 800 light fittings, will generate about 45,000 kWh per annum besides annual saving of about Rs.4 lakh in electricity bills. Also present on the occasion were Member Electrical Railway Board Shri A.K. Mittal, Member Engineering Railway Board Shri V.K. Gupta, Financial Commissioner Railway Board Smt. Rajalakshmi Ravikumar besides other officials from Railway Board, Northern Railway and Delhi Division.

To expand its footprint in the solar energy space, Indian Railway is in the process of formulating a ‘Solar Policy’ of procuring 1000 MW Solar Power under viability gap funding support and Central Financial Assistance schemes of Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) over next 5 years.

To protect our environment, addressing the challenges of changes in global climate, promoting sustainable development and reducing dependence on fossil fuel, Indian Railways have taken various initiatives and is endeavouring to harness wind and solar energy in a big way to provide environmental friendly pollution free mode of transport. So far Indian Railways is harnessing solar energy of about 10 MW capacity at about 500 Railway stations, 4000 Level Crossing (LC) gates and at number of rooftop spaces of office buildings, hospitals, workshops besides solar based water heating applications at training institutes, retiring rooms and running rooms. IR has further planned to provide solar plants of another 10 MW capacity at 200 Railway stations including Katra Railway station, 26 buildings and 2000 LC gates.