Railway employees to switch over to CFLs to save power

The Ministry of Railway has awarded a contract through competitive bidding for supply of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) free of cost to railway employees residing in railway colonies. The cost of CFLs will be recovered by the firm through Carbon Credits to be earned from the project. Railways will also earn 3 per cent carbon credits that accrue from the project. Under this project each railway household will get up to a maximum of 4 CFLs in exchange for 4 Incandescent lamps (ICL). A 60 watt ICL will be replaced by 14 watt CFL and 100 watt ICL by 20 watt CFL.

A light weight design of stainless steel coach has been acquired by Indian Railways though a transfer of technology from M/s. Linke Haffman Bush (LHB). Besides having a higher passenger capacity, it has also lighter in weight as compared to conventional design coaches. This initiative has led to efficient and optimized energy consumption for haulage of coaches/trains. Indian Railways have indigenously manufactured about 900 such coaches so far.

Other initiatives undertaken by Railways to cut down energy consumption and emission are:-

1. Use of energy efficient kits on diesel locomotives.

3. Trials with bio-diesel for Diesel Locomotives and CNG mixed with high speed diesel in Diesel Multiple Units (DMUs).

4. Adoption of state of art high efficiency Insulated Gate Bipolar Electrical Multiple Units (EMUs) that exploits regeneration to recover energy during braking. This also reduces carbon emission as drawal of electricity is reduced.

5. Adoption of energy efficient light fittings and employing Clean Development Mechanism to distribute CFLs free of cost to Railway employees residing in Railway colonies, in replacement of incandescent lamps.

6. Generation of electricity through wind mills in wind rich areas. A pilot project of 10.5 MW capacity has been successfully executed in Tamil Nadu for supply of wind generated electricity to Integral Coach Factory (ICF) at Chennai.

7. Thrust on use of solar power and solar water heater particularly in running rooms and hospitals. And

8. Use of stainless steel in wagon construction to reduce wagon weight.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Railways, Shri K.H. Muniyappa in a written reply in Lok Sabha today