Indian Railways to promote use of alternative fuels
Published: Fri, 2014-11-07 08:00In a bid to reduce diesel consumption, Indian Railways is planning to use alternative fuel to run a fleet of 4000 locomotives, Business Standard reported on 06 November.
D V Sadananda Gowda, India’s Railway Minister, said, “Indian Railways is the single-largest bulk consumer of diesel in the country and as mentioned in Railway Budget 2014-15, it will start using bio-diesel up to five percent of the total fuel consumption in diesel locomotives. This will save precious foreign exchange substantially,” according to the report.
In addition, Indian Railways has also established Indian Railways Organization for Alternative Fuels (IROAF). The organisation will enable Indian Railways to become an eco-friendly entity by using alternative fuels and, fuel efficient and emission control technologies.
IROAF aims at reducing the unit of cost of diesel traction fuel by 20 percent by 2020.