India's first electric locomotive to be flagged off today: Key highlights

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will flag off the country’s first high-powered electric locomotive assembled in Madhepura in Bihar on Tuesday. The PM is will dedicate the Madhepura factory to the nation.

Here are key highlights of the launch

* This first locomotive is part of a joint venture of the railways with French giant Alstom, signed in 2015 and the first major FDI project in the rail sector.

* The project envisages capital investment of around Rs 1,300 crore by the JV company where the Ministry of Railways is required to contribute a maximum of Rs 100 crore as its equity (26%) participation.

* India will join an elite list countries, including Russia, China, Germany and Sweden, that have 12,000 horsepower (HP) and above capacity electric locomotives. Till now, the most powerful electric engine in the Indian Railways was of 6,000 HP.


* The Indian Railways is looking to manufacture 800 electric train engines over the next 11 years to meet the requirement of locomotives after the electrification of almost all railway routes.

* The heavy-haulage locos, with a maximum speed of 110 km per hour, will help decongest saturated routes by improving the speed and carrying capacity of freight trains.

* While five locomotives will be assembled at the factory by 2019 and the remaining 795 will be manufactured under the 'Make in India' initiative. The rolling out of the first locomotive on April 10 will be followed by four more locos in the current fiscal.



* About 35 locos will be manufactured at the Madhepura facility in the next fiscal (2019-20) and 60 in 2020-21. The factory will build 100 electric engines per year from the financial year 2021-22.

* A team of more than 35 engineers have been working day and night to assemble the electric engines at the factory, set up at an estimated cost of more than Rs 20,000 crore.



* These locos would be pressed into service to transport coal and iron ore. Equipped with insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT)-based propulsion technology, the 12,000 HP locomotives will be compliant with Indian standards of freight transport.

* The foundation stone for the factory was laid in 2007 by then railway minister Lalu Prasad. The locomotive factory is spread over 250 acres of land in Madhepura, 284 km northeast of state capital Patna.