As part of the Railway Board’s key mission of developing Indian Railways stations and upgrade the rail infrastructure, an investment of Rs 50 lakh crore has been estimated to be required for modernising the Indian Railways network. This amount of investment will be required for the development of the Indian Railways network between the years 2018-2030. Recently, in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal informed that the investment in Indian Railways is mobilised from a varied mix of sources including the budgetary and extra budgetary resources through institutional finance as well as the Public Private Partnership (PPP). Also, a part of the investment for the completion of railway tracks, rolling stock manufacturing as well as the delivery of passenger, freight services has been envisaged under PPP.
As part of the modernisation process, as many as 1250 Indian Railways stations have been identified for development under the Adarsh Railway Station Development Scheme across all the states of the country.
The steps which have been taken by the Railway Ministry in order to utilize various environmental friendly sources on the Indian Railways network are as follows:
- The use of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power: Presently, Indian Railways utilizes about 202 megawatt (MW) of renewable power on its network.
- The provision and usage of energy efficient light emitting diode (LED) lighting: All the railway stations (100 percent) on the network, service buildings as well as about 89 percent of the residential quarters have been provided with LED lights.
- The installation of bio-toilets in coaches: Nearly 2,30,000 bio-toilets have been installed in as many as 64,000 passenger coaches of Indian Railways trains.
- Blending of Biodiesel with High Speed Diesel (HSD): Blending of about 5 percent Biodiesel in the HSD for diesel locomotives was started in the month of June, 2015.
Along with the environment-friendly measures, some of the steps taken by the Railway Ministry in order to avoid losses on the Indian Railways network are as follows:
- Operational efficiencies through the running of longer and heavier trains on the network
- The formulation of policies for the non-fare revenue generation
- The monetization of surplus land on the network through Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA).