URGA

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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प्रेस विज्ञप्ति/ Press Release No. 191  Dt: 13.08.2020

DIGITAL FILE MOVEMENT UP BY 3 TIMES IN 4 MONTHS IN SWR, DIGITAL RECEIPTS CREATED ALSO INCREASES TO 3 TIMES

The lockdown and efforts of minimizing human/physical contacts in work place has pushed up the digital platform usage of South Western Railway (SWR) replacing the manual filing system. The number of digital files of SWR o­n NIC e office platform, implemented by RailTel, has increased more than 3 times during the past 4 months (April-July 2020).  Post Covid, the number of e-files generated by SWR was 3623 and by end of July the number of e files created by users of SWR has increased to14,069. The number e-receipts generated by users of SWR have also increased approx. 3 times during this period. Also, 803 new e-office users were registered during this period.

RailTel, a Miniratna PSU under Ministry of Railways, is implementing the NIC e-office suite for Indian Railways in a phased manner. All over Indian Railway, currently there are 1,05,110 users in 106 units of Indian Railways (Zone HQ, Divisions, PU,CTI etc) and as o­n 7.8.2020 a total number of 17,68,780 e receipts and 5,71,665 e files had been created.

With usage of digital filing increasing rapidly, SWR is in a fast track of adapting paperless office culture which will not o­nly save operational cost but also reduce the carbon foot print.

Due to availability of e-office, majority of file work in o­n SWR now can continue smoothly without physical presence in offices which is a boon in a time of crisis.  RailTel has also provided Virtual Private Network connections to Railway officials for enabling them to process the file works remotely.  Quick disposal of files and systematic, timely monitoring of pending files are some of the other immediate advantage of NIC e Office.

Railway officials have also been provided with training by RailTel teams to handle e-office platform efficiently.  For education the users, RailTel has made training videos and uploaded them o­n Youtube also so that the users can get a grip o­n the usage of e-office. The officials have been motivated to give up the habit of using manual file system. RailTel has also provided a helpdesk to assist Railway users in case of difficulty faced in working through the e platform.

NIC e-Office is cloud enabled software developed by National Informatics center (NIC) that is being deployed/hosted from RailTel Tier III UPTIME USA certified data centres at Secunderabad and Gurgaon.

The Zonal Head Quarters, Hubballi and Bangalore division have been using e-office platform since July 2019 and Hubballi and Mysuru from Jan 2020 this year.

Shri Ajay Kumar Singh, GM/SWR has said that quick disposal of files and systematic, timely monitoring of pending files is possible in addition to the non contact situation which is the norm in this pandemic.  SWR is also moving into a work culture through e-office where there is transparency and paperless working.                                                                  

                                                                                           Chief Public Relations Officer

                                                                              South Western Railway, Hubballi