Showing posts with label Indian Railways. Show all posts
Dec 12, 2015
India & Japan sign MoC on High Speed Rail on Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector
India and Japan have signed historic Memorandum of Co-operation (MoC) to introduce High Speed Rail (HRS) on Mumbai Ahmedabad sector to revolutionize Indian Railways.
The MoC was signed in presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in New Delhi.
This agreement confirms developing of high speed rail corridor using of Japanese high speed rail technologies along with financial and technical assistance from Japan.
Under the agreement
- India and Japan have signed an MoU on cooperation and assistance in the Mumbai – Ahmedabad High Speed Rail Project (referred by many as Bullet Train project).
- Japan has offered an assistance of over Rs.79,000 crore for the project.
- The loan is for a period of 50 years with a moratorium of 15 years, at an interest rate of 0.1 per cent.
- The project is a 508 Kilometer railway line costing a total of Rs. 97,636 crore, to be implemented in a period of seven years.
- It has been agreed that Shinkansen Technology will be adopted for the project.
- The cooperation of Japan will be fixed on transfer of technology and “Make in India”. Japan will assist India in training of personnel for HSR.
Civil Nuclear agreement
India and Japan also have reached substantive Agreement on Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy. Under it both sides have confirmed cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The final deal will be signed after certain technical and legal issues are thrashed out.
Dec 7, 2015
Indian Railways flags off first double decker Goa-Mumbai train
Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on Sunday flagged off the inaugural service of the Goa-Mumbai double-decker air-conditioned Shatabdi train, which will run thrice a week between Goa's Madgaon railway station and the Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT) in Mumbai.It would cover the distance between two states in around 12 hours and has total eight compartments with a seating capacity of 120 in each compartment.
The fully air-conditioned double-decker train was the first of its kind in the country and was flagged off from Panaji by Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu. It would play important role in boosting tourism in Goa by bringing the tourists over to the coastal state during the peak tourist season.
Dec 1, 2015
Indian Railways ink Rs 40000 cr deal of locomotive plants with GE, Alstom in Bihar
Indian Railways has signed two joint venture agreements with global transport majors General Electric and Alstom Transport for setting up two locomotive factories in Bihar with an investment of Rs 40,000 crore.
Under this deal, first venture the electric locomotive factory would be set up at Madhepura city and diesel locomotive would be set up at Marhowrah district of the state.
The electric locomotive factory would create 3,000 jobs when it would be commissioned in 2018. The rail ministry had opened financial bids for the two projects in September. The ministry said the locomotives would be used for heavy-haul operations in the Dedicated Freight Corridor project and would lead to development of ancillary manufacturing units in Bihar.
This is also the first big Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the Indian railway sector after government had relaxed FDI norms to 100 per cent in the railway sector in 2014.
Nov 8, 2015
Indian Railways wins 32nd Indian Oil Surjit Hockey Tournament
Indian Railways has won 32nd edition of Indian Oil Surjit Hockey tournament for the first time.
In the final match played at Olympian Surjit Hockey Stadium in Jalandhar (Punjab), Indian Railways team defeated defending champions Indian Oil Mumbai by 4-3 score.
Score
- Indian Railways: Captain Vinod Kumar (18th minute), Malak Singh scored two goals (34th minute and 43rd minute), Affan Yusuf (45th minute).
- Indian Oil Mumbai: Captain Deepak Thakur scored two goals (13th minute and 63rd minute), Sunil Yadav (55th minute).
With this victory, the winning team bagged 5 lakh rupees cash award and Winners Trophy. While, the runners up got 2.50 lakh rupees cash and Runners Up Trophy.
Malak Singh of Indian Railways was adjudged as Player of the Tournament and was given a cash prize of 25,000 rupees.
About Surjit Memorial Hockey Tournament
- It is an annual hockey tournament organized by Surjit Hockey Society in Jalandhar, Punjab in the memory of Surjit Singh Randhawa.
- Surjit Singh was an Indian field hockey player, who had represented India national field hockey team at the 1976 Montreal Olympics and was captain of team.
Did You Know???
- ‘Blackheath Rughy and Hockey Club’ is the first hockey club in the world which was set up in the year 1861 in England.
- The apex institution of hockey is ‘Federation International de Hockey’, which was established on January 7, 1924, with headquarters at Vienna (Austria), which was later shifted to Paris (France).
- Hockey was introduced in the Olympic Games for the first time in 1908 in London.
- Since 1944, National Hockey Championship is organised by the IHF every year.
- All India Women’s Hockey Federation was formed in 1947.
- India took that part in Olympics for the first time in 1928 (in Amsterdam Olympics)
- In Olympics, India has won the hockey title a maximum of 8 times. The first World Cup Hockey was played in Barcelona in 1971.
Nov 1, 2015
Indian Railways launches Vikalp scheme for waitlisted passengers
Indian Railways has launched Vikalp scheme to facilitate waitlisted passengers to get an alternative train accommodation.
The scheme has been launched on pilot basis in trains running on Delhi-Lucknow and Delhi-Jammu sectors for 6 months and option will be limited to Mail and Express trains.
With this scheme, Indian Railways aim to achieve the twin objectives
- Providing confirmed accommodation to waitlisted passengers.
- Ensure optimal utilisation of available accommodation for these passengers.
Under this scheme
- Waitlisted passengers will get confirmed accommodation in next alternative train if they opt for it while booking their tickets online.
- Once they opt for it passengers will get SMS alert on their mobile phone about getting confirmed accommodation in alternative train.
- No extra charges will be paid passenger to avail this scheme or any refund provided for the difference of fare.
- In the alternative train, the name of passenger who has been provided accommodation will not figure in the waitlisted charts of their original train.
- A separate list of passengers transferred in alternative train will be pasted along with the confirmed and waitlist charts.
Oct 23, 2015
Japan offers soft loan to India for bullet train project
Japan has offered soft loan of 15 billion dollars (Rs 90,000 crore) at an interest rate of less than 1 per cent to India’s ambitious first bullet train project viz. Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed rail corridor along with technology.
In this regard, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has submitted its report to the Union Railway Ministry. In its report JICA has envisaged a reduction in the travel time on the 505-km long corridor between the two western cities to 2 hours from the existing period of over 7 hours.
The report also has mentioned that the bullet train is expected to run at speeds of around 300-350 km/hour.
Oct 15, 2015
Union Government flags off Climate Special Science Express
Union Government has flagged off Climate Special Science Express Climate Action Special with the theme of Climate Change.
It was flagged off by Union Science and Technology Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan from Safdarjung railway station in New Delhi.
Key facts
- The Science Express aims to create awareness among various sections of the society especially the students about various challenges and issues associated with Climate Change.
- It is an innovative science exhibition mounted on a 16 coach AC train and has been custom-
Oct 9, 2015
Union Government launches app to book unreserved rail tickets
Indian Railways has launched mobile application to book unreserved rail tickets for the convenience of passengers.
The launched IT enabled passenger services app was launched by Union Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu in New Delhi.
These services include
- Ticketing paperless unreserved tickets through mobile phones on suburban stations of Central railway.
- Paperless platform tickets at selected stations of Western, Northern and Central Railways.
Passengers can download the mobile app from Google Play Store or Windows Store. Under these service passengers can book single journey ticket and the payment has to be made using R Wallet. They also can book platform ticket also by choosing appropriate option in the app.
Sep 29, 2015
Google to provide Wi-Fi in 400 Indian railway stations
Search engine giant Google has announced to provide high-speed public Wi-Fi in 400 Indian railway stations.
To set up public Wi-Fi hotspots, Google is working with the Indian Railways and RailTel, a government-owned provider of telecommunications infrastructure to the railways.
The project will be implemented in phased manner and initially it will cover 100 of the busiest stations in India before the end of 2016. The first stations are expected to come online by end of October 2015.
The internet service will be offered free initially with an aim to make the project self-sustainable in order to provide Wi-Fi to more stations and other places.
Once this project is implemented successfully it will benefit around 21 million passengers of Indian Railways. Presently, India has about 300 million people online or having internet connectivity.
Sep 18, 2015
Indian Railways develops Hybrid Vacuum Toilets
Indian Railways has developed a Hybrid Vacuum Toilet design which combines the advantages of Vacuum toilets and those of Biotoilets.
The first of its kind system in the world has been developed by the Development Cell of Indian Railway Board. This newly developed toilet facility has been fitted on trial basis in Dibrugarh Rajdhani.
Features of Hybrid Vacuum Toilet
- The prototype of Hybrid Vacuum Toilet consists two parts of a custom designed Vacuum toilet and a biodigester tank.
- The vacuum toilet has been adapted from a commercially available systems used in aircrafts.
- These toilets evacuate its discharge into a biodigester tank of the biotoilets which is fitted underneath the train coach of Indian Railways which does not need large space.
- The biodigester tank contains anaerobic bacteria that convert human faecal matter into water and small amount of gases by the process of hydrolysis, acetogenesis, acidogenesis and methanogenesis.
- Advantages: It will help to maintain hygiene and cleanliness in toilets or tracks of Indian Railways as there will no direct evacuation of human waste.
- Vacuum toilet also saves water as it consumes only 500 Milliliters of water for flushing compared to typical conventional toilet or Biotoilet which uses 10-15 liters of water per flush.
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