North Central Railway Zone fully electrified | So Good News

In a major leap towards achieving 100 per cent electrification, the North Central Railway (NCR) is now 100 per cent electrified, the Ministry of Railways informed.

The North Central Railway achieved this feat by electrifying 76 route kilometers (RKM) of the Ishanagar-Udaipura section of the Jhansi division.

This was the last section to be electrified out of NCR’s total Broad Gauge (BG) network of 3222 RKM.

In India, North Central Railway (NCR) is one of the 16 railway zones. It is headquartered in Prayagraj (Uttar Pradesh). It consists of three divisions namely Prayagraj, Agra and Jhansi.

The current network of NCR spans a large area in North Central India, covering the states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana.

Earlier two divisions Agra and Prayagraj were 100 percent electrified and with this now entire BG network of NCR has been electrified.

The NCR Railway zone has also received authorization from the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) to run the train with electric traction on this stretch.

With the electrification of the entire network, the NCR Railway routes will now be operated through electrified territories.

The importance of these massive electrification works lies in the fact that it will reduce the bottleneck of change of traction when a train coming from electric locomotive arrives in a non-electrified territory.

Since the requirement to change traction has been discontinued, it increases mobility and is thus a leap forward when it comes to improving the punctuality of the trains.

Mission 100 percent electrification

Indian Railways (IR) is working on a mission mode to electrify the entire BG network to provide eco-friendly, green and clean mode of transport to its people under the plan “Mission 100 percent Electrification – Moving into net Zero Carbon Emission”.

As of 30 September this year, IR has electrified 53,098 RKM out of 65,141 RKM, which is 81.51 percent of the total BG network.

The target for electrification during the current financial year is 6,500 RKM, of which 851 RKM have been electrified until 30 September 2022.

The Railways electrified a record 6,366 RKM during 2021-22 compared to 6,015 RKM electrified in 2020-21.

In fact, Indian Railway has set a target to electrify the entire length of broad gauge railway routes by 2023-24.

Before NCR, four railway zones have achieved 100 percent electrification. These include – East Coast Railway, South Eastern Railway (SER), West Central Railway (WCR) and Eastern Railway (ER).

Together with the Konkan Railway, it is also now 100 percent electrified. Konkan Railway Corporation completed electrification of its entire 741 kilometer route between Roha in Maharashtra and Thokur in Karnataka in March 2022.