209 MW solar plants have been set up at 2,249 railway stations: Vaishnaw

New Delhi, April 2 (IANS) Indian Railways has set up about 209 MW of solar plants on 2,249 railway stations and service buildings across the country so far as part of its efforts to promote solar energy in line with the government policies to enhance renewable energy, the Parliament was informed on Wednesday.

As many as 1,489 of these solar units have been added in the last five years, which is 2.3 times more than the 628 that were installed in the previous five years.

State-wise data shows that Rajasthan is the leading state with 275 solar power units at railway stations, followed by Maharashtra with 270 units.

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told the Lok Sabha in a written reply that Indian Railways has planned to progressively procure renewable energy through different power procurement modes for Round The Clock (RTC) power, which is a hybrid solution for renewable power including solar and wind. Most of the work of setting up of solar plants is undertaken by Railways through Power Purchase Agreement under the developer mode.

During implementation of solar energy, many challenges like regulatory constraints, power evacuation and connectivity issues were faced by the railways. To tackle these issues, the state governments and transmission utilities were pursued on a regular basis.

In answer to another question, the minister said that Indian Railways has a detailed mechanism in place for continuous monitoring of revenue generated at each railway station. Based on passenger earnings and footfalls, railway stations are categorised into Non-suburban Grade (NSG1-6), Suburban Grade (SG1-3), and Halt Grade (HG1-3) Stations.

The sources of revenue at the station include passenger earnings, freight earnings, other coaching earnings such as parcel, luggage, platform tickets, postal haulage charges and cloak room charges.

Sundry earnings include revenue from rent, leased parking lots, catering receipts, revenue from commercial utilisation of land, and advertisements on coaches and stations.

Designated officials such as Commercial Inspectors, Travelling Inspectors of Accounts, etc., of the Division concerned supervise the revenues. The monitoring of revenue generated at each Railway station is done by concerned officials at all levels i.e. Station, Division and the Zonal Head Quarters, the minister said.

With a view to ensuring transparency, accuracy and efficiency in the present revenue management system, several digital applications, developed by domain experts of CRIS (Centre for Railway Information Systems), are in use, he added.

--IANS

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