Minister of Railways in Rajyasabha: Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav has made a grand statement in the Rajya Sabha to improve the infrastructure of the Railways. In response to a written question in the Upper House, Ashwini Vaishnav said that the Railways are considering operating trains running on hydrogen fuel on the heritage route of hilly areas.
He further said that in his pilot project, a total of 39 hydrogen trains have been considered to operate so far. The Railway Minister said that each hydrogen train will be manufactured at Rs 80 crore while Rs 70 crore will be spent on ground infrastructure on each route. All hydrogen trains will run on mountain routes.
‘Pilot project started’
In response to a question in the Rajya Sabha, he said that a Rs 111.83 crore pilot project has been started to install hydrogen fuel cell retrofit in DEMU trains. This pilot hydrogen train project will run on the Jind-Sonipat section of the Northern Railway. Field testing of this train is possible in 2023-24.
Currently, the cost of running hydrogen trains will be higher than conventional trains, but as the number of trains increases, this cost will decrease. This green transportation technology will prove to be very effective in the direction of zero carbon emissions from railways.
‘Railways will increase capacity to book tickets’
Indian Railways plans to increase ticketing capacity from 25,000 to 2.25 lakhs per minute, and inquiry capacity from 4 to 40 lakhs per minute. At a press conference, Ashwini Vaishnav said that a target has also been set to lay 7,000 km of new railways in the 2023-24 fiscal year.
He said that our plan is to further improve the train reservation system. He has announced that he will open 24-hour public convenience stores in 2,000 train stations in the country.
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