AMBLI ROAD

WESTERN RAILWAY INSTALLED ROOFTOP SOLAR PANELS OF 5601.69 KWp CAPACITY AT 75 STATIONS

Photo caption :- A view of the solar power panels installed o­n rooftop of a railway station.

In order to achieve the objective of Indian Railways to become 100% self sustainable for all it's power needs and also to contribute to national solar power goals, Western Railway has solarised its 75 stations till date. The use of solar power will accelerate the Railway's mission to achieve the goal of becoming “Net Zero Carbon Emission Railway”before 2030.

According to a press release issued by Shri Sumit Thakur - Chief Public Relations Officer of Western Railway, suitable Rooftop Solar Panels have been installed at 75 stations over Western Rly. 8.67 MWpcapacity rooftop solar plants have been provided at various railway stations and office buildings. These plants have been commissioned and connected to grid and as a result, there is a saving ofRs. 3 crore is accrued during the financial year.

Shri Thakur informed that Solar Plants have been installed at 22 stations in Mumbai Division, 34 stations in Ratlam Division, 6 stations of Vadodara Division & 8 stations in Rajkot Division. Similarly, in Ahmedabad Division, solar plants have been installed at Sabarmati & Ambli Road stations as well as Ahmedabad station building whereas in Bhavnagar Division at Bhavnagar station & Somnath station building. In Mumbai Division, the rooftop Solar Plants have been installed at Churchgate, Grant Road, Matunga Road, Andheri, Mumbai Central, Lower Parel, Mahim, Khar Road, Santacruz, Ram Mandir, Malad, Kandivali, Borivali, Dahisar, Mira Road, Bhayander, Naigaon, Vasai Road, Nallasopara, Dahanu Road stations, while atDadar as well as at Bandra Terminus, station buildings & platforms. In Ratlam Division, rooftop Solar Plants have been installed at Chanderiya, Nimbhera, Gambhiri, Jawad Road, MangliyaGaon, Ajnod, Lakshmibai Nagar, Ranyal, Jasmiya, Pipliya, Mandsaur, Nauganwan, Runija, Bangrod, Sehore, Kalapipla, Pachwan, Maksi, Vikramnagar station buildings, Indore, Ujjain, Dewas, Chittaurgadh, Meghnagar, Bajrangarh, Fatehabad, Gautampura, Dr. Ambedkar Nagar (Mhow), Nagda, Nimach, Jaora,Badnagar, Shujalpur, Kachrod stations and at Ratlam station building & platforms. In Vadodara Division, the rooftop Solar Plants have been installed at Vadodara, Od, Makarpura, Varnarna, Sadhanpura station buildings and at Godhra staton building & platforms. In Rajkot Division, the rooftop Solar Plants have been installed at Rajkot, Okha, Jamnagar, Chamaraj, Lakhamachi, Modpur, Lakhabawal and Pipli stations.

It is worth mentioning that Indian Railways is set to produce solar energy for meeting all it's energy consumption needs of more than 33 billion units by 2030. Current annual requirement is about 20 billion units. Indian Railways has a mega plan for installing solar plants of 20 GW capacity by 2030 by utilizing its vacant land. About 51,000 hectares of vacant land is available with Indian Railways and is now ready to extend all support to the developers for installing solar power plants o­n Railway’s vacant un-encroached land. It may be noted that Railways is also set to achieve 100% electrification by the year 2023 and is committed to utilize solar energy for meeting its traction power requirement and become a complete ‘Green mode of transportation’. This is in line with the recent directive of Hon’ble Prime Minister to solarise railway stations and utilize vacant railway land for Renewable Energy (RE) projects.

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                                                                 SOUTH WESTERN RAILWAY

                                      Press Release No. 389  Dt. 12.02.2020

Ballari to Hubballi track doubled

Binkadakatti - Gadag – Kaninghal - Harlapur - important 23 km long section o­n either side of Gadag junction o­n Hubballi division has been commissioned with Double line o­n 12.02.2020.  The 23 Km section is part of the 352 Km doubling of Hosapete – Tinaighat – Vaso-da-gama Section project.  This has been doubled after inspection of Commissioner of Railway Safety o­n 11.01.2020.  Prior to this, 201 Km of doubling in the section has been commissioned. General Manager, South Western Railway Shri A K Singh said that "With this the section to the east of Hubballi Station upto Ballari has been doubled.  The doubling o­n this important section will give impetus to mobility of both passenger and goods trains. The work of electrification o­n this section is also being executed in full swing”.

At Gadag new Electronic Interlocking with 149 routes has been commissioned at 4.00 hrs.  This replaces end cabin system at Gadag. At Kanginhal Station new Electronic Interlocking was commissioned at 5.10 hrs.  This was a small 3 block section single line patch and with this, doubling is now through between Hosapete to Hubballi /Hubballi byepass which has tremendous operational benefits.

Shri P K Kshatriya, CPM, Shri Ramesh Kambli, GM/Projects, Smt Madhavi John, GGM/S&T and Shri Satish Kumar, JGM/S&T, RVNL officers have been instrumental in completing this section without any detention to trains. Officers of SWR mainly from Hubballi Division of Engineering, Operating, Signal & Telecommunication ensured timely execution of the doubling.  Officers of Hubballi Division have streamlined the traffic movements during Non Interlocking (NI) and facilitated the testing blocks which also had a major role for early commissioning.

Now the doubling apart from for the ghat section area in Karnataka from Tinaighat to Hosapete has been completed except for a small patch between Hubballi and Dharwad (20 Kms) which is targeted for completion by end of March 2020.

The details of sections commissioned during last 4 years is as below:-

Commissioned in 2016-17

Commissioned in 2017-18

Commissioned in 2018-19

Commissioned in 2019-20

                                                     (E. Vijaya)

                                                          Chief Public Relations Office