Railways set to electrify 38,000 km route in next five years

Railways has prepared an action plan to electrify 38,000 km route in five years from 2017-18, the ministry informed the Rajya Sabha today.

In a written reply to a question, Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain said the pace of electrification has been increased to achieve 100 per cent electrification of broad gauge (BG) rail routes.

Currently, only 42 per cent of total track network is electrified and the rest is operating on fossil fuel.

The minister said that in 2017-2018 the national transporter has set a target of electrifying 4,000 km route, while in the next fiscal the target is to electrify 6,000 km route.

In 2019-20, 7,000 km route will be electrified, while in 2020-2021 and the next year, the target is of 10,500 km route each.

Among the states, the most route km to be identified for electrification - 1991 - in Rajasthan, followed by Assam (1,448 km route) Uttar Pradesh (1,308 km route) and Gujarat (1088 km route).

"To achieve 100 per cent electrification of Broad Gauge (BG) rail routes, pace of electrification has been increased from present average of 1,700 route kilometer per annum to 4,000 route kilometer/annum which will further be increased to 6,000 route kilometers in 2018-19", the MoS said.

Railways' energy bill is touching about Rs 32,000 crore a year out of which diesel is about Rs 20,000 crore.

With electrification of major rail routes, the energy bill is likely to come down by Rs 10,000 crore, officials said.