Indian railways aims to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2030: Piyush Goyal

NEW DELHI: Piyush Goyal, Minister of Railways & Minister of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, on Wednesday, August 26 said that the Indian Railways aims to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2030. Goyal, in a tweet, said that by 2030, Indian Railways will be a net-zero railway and there will be zero carbon emissions. It carries nearly 8 billion passengers and 1.2 billion tons of freight every year and it will be the world’s first railways of this scale to go green. As per government data, the Indian rail network is the fourth largest in the world after the US, Russia, and China. It covers 67,368 kilometres of tracks and has 7,300 stations. 

In the report, NITI Aayog, government’s think tank, said that Indian Railways’ carbon emissions amounted to 6.84 million tons in 2014. 

Goyal said that by December 2023, Indian railways will have 100 per cent electrified train network, the first railway of this scale in the world which will be diesel-free. He further said that the centre aims to make use of the land along the tracks to produce 20 gigawatts of clean energy and the solar power equipment to be used for this objective will be ‘Made in India’. The centre would shut down old coal plants, Goyal said last year while announcing the railway electrification goal. In this regard, the experts have stated that when there will be 100 per cent electrification of the railway network, the average speed of trains will also increase by 10-15 per cent.