Indian Railways has developed a Post COVID Coach to fight COVID 19. This Post COVID Coach is designed with handsfree amenities, copper-coated handrails and latches, plasma air purification and titanium di-oxide coating for the Covid-free passenger journey.

The Railways Ministry said, the Coach has been designed by Rail Coach Factory at Kapurthala to prevent the spread of Covid 19. The Ministry said, Railways has taken numerous steps and measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 virus infection.

This Post COVID Coach includes handsfree amenities like foot-operated water tap and soap dispenser, foot-operated lavatory door, foot-operated flush valve, outside washbasin with foot-operated water tap and soap dispenser. The Ministry said this Coach has the provision of plasma air equipment in AC duct. This equipment will sterilize the air and surfaces inside the AC coach using ionized air to make the coach Covid-19 and particulate matter resistant.

Meanwhile, Indian Railways has stepped up its efforts to become a Green Railway within a span of 10 years. It has set the target to achieve net-zero carbon emission by the year 2030. Railways have taken a number of initiatives for mitigation of global warming and combating climate change to achieve the Green Railway status. Electrification of lines, improving the energy efficiency of trains, green certification for installation and stations, fitting bio-toilets in coaches and switching to renewable sources of energy are parts of Railways’ strategy for achieving net-zero carbon emission.

Indian Railways has completed electrification of more than 40,000 route kilometers which is 63 percent of the total broad gauge routes. More than 18600-kilometer electrification work has been completed during the last six years. Railways have fixed an electrification target of 7000 route kilometers for this financial year. All routes on the broad gauge network have been planned to be electrified by the end of the year 2023. In all, 365-kilometer major connectivity work has been commissioned during the COVID pandemic period.

Indian Railways is also promoting solar and wind energy. One Hundred megawatt capacity solar plants have been commissioned and 400-megawatt plants are under different stages of execution. In addition, Railways is trying to produce power from land-based solar installations for running trains. Railways have 51,000 hectares of the land potential of installing 20-gigawatt land-based solar plants. One project of 1.7 megawatts at Bina in Madhya Pradesh in collaboration with BHEL has already been installed.

In the wind energy sector, 103-megawatt wind-based power plants have already been commissioned in Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. Railways have also planned to set up 200-megawatt wind energy plants in the next two years in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Karnataka. Railways have started other green initiatives like a hundred percent LED illumination of buildings and stations. A total of 69 thousand coaches have been fitted with more than 2,44,000 bio-toilets.