Railways to promote alternative fuels in major way: D V Sadananda Gowda

NEW DELHI: The railways have decided to promote use of alternative fuels like bio-diesel in a big way for powering their vast fleet of over 4000 diesel locomotives to ensure a cleaner environment, Railway Minister D V Sadananda Gowda said today.

Inaugurating Bio-Fuels Conference here, he said the railways will start using bio-diesel up to 5 per cent of the total fuel consumption in diesel locomotives.

"This will save precious foreign exchange substantially," he said.

Diesel locomotives cater to a large segment of rail traffic in the country, hauling both passenger and freight trains. The railways consume over two billion litres of diesel every year, footing a bill of more than Rs 15,000 crore annually.

"Therefore, even a small reduction in fuel consumption through blending with bio-diesel will result in a substantial savings in the fuel bill," he said.

The railways are the single largest bulk consumer of diesel in the country.

Extensive trials have already been conducted by RDSO using bio-diesel in different proportions on railway locomotives and results have been found to be very encouraging, Gowda said.

The Minister said the railways will consider exploring possibility of planting Jatropha plants, used for producing bio-diesel, along the rail tracks.