Minister for railways Piyush Goyal (PTI photo)

NEW DELHI: The government is working on measures to make the Indian Railways the first Green Railways in the world in the next 10 years. Sharing the roadmap to enable the shift to clean energy sources, minister for railways Piyush Goyal said in Rajya Sabha on Friday that besides focussing on electrification of tracks and moving to biodiesel, the government was looking at setting up solar energy installations on its unutilised land and building that into a major energy source in the years to come.

Goyal made it clear that there was no proposal at present to change railway fares after the recent hike in diesel costs due to increased excise duty in the general budget.

Goyal reiterated before members that railways was reducing its diesel cost inputs by electrifying its tracks on a large scale and will also produce solar energy on its vacant land. "By 2022, we are going to do full electrification of railways," junior minister Angadi Channabasappa said.

Congress MP Jairam Ramesh claimed Goyal was known to make "grand announcements" and went on to ask the railway minister about how he would achieve the 100% electrification of railway tracks and shift from diesel to bio-diesel. Goyal responded by saying: "Unless you aspire for big goals, you cannot achieve big targets". "Probably 10 years from now, we can make Indian Railways the world's first 100% Green Rail."

Read this report in Bengali

