Indian Railways Workshops to Switch to Gas
Indian Railways, India's biggest employer, has decided to start using natural gas in its workshops, production units and residential colonies. The aim is to replace polluting industrial fuels such as dissolved acetylene, liquified petroleum gas (LPG), furnace oil and high-speed diesel (HSD) with much cleaner natural gas.
A memorandum of understanding was signed August 30 in New Delhi between Indian Railways and state-owned gas distribution firm Gail, under which Gail will provide infrastructure for supply of gas, India’s railways ministry said the same day. Gail will also build infrastructure for housing colonies where employees of Indian railways reside.
“Besides the huge benefits to the environment by reducing harmful greenhouse emissions, the replacement of industrial gases and furnace oils with natural gas also results in cost benefits with potential for huge savings,” the ministry said.
In the first phase, 24 workshops and production units out of 54 will switch to gas latest by December 31. All the 54 workshops and production units, along with other railway establishments like guest houses, hostels and kitchens, should start using gas by June 30, 2019, the ministry said. Also, about 1,100 households in railway colony in Bhubaneswar in the state of Odisha will be connected with piped natural gas facility, the ministry said. The use of natural gas has potential to replace about 844,027 m3 of acetylene, 235,4425 kg of LPG and 5500 kilolitres of HSD and furnace oil and is likely to result in a saving of about rupees 200mn/yr ($3mn/yr) for the railways.
Indian Railways has already started a pilot project at Matunga workshop in Mumbai and Kota workshop in the state of Rajasthan. Also, use of CNG has been taken up by rail wheel factory in Bengaluru in the state of Karnataka.