Railways Touches Another Milestone: North Central Railway Zone Completely Electrified

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

The North Central Railway attained this feat by electrifying 76 Route kilometers (RKM) of Ishanagar-Udaipura section of Jhansi Division.

This was the last section which was due for electrification out of the NCR total Broad Gauge (BG) network of 3,222 RKM.

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

The present network of NCR extends over a large area of North Central India, covering the states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana.

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

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

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

The significance of these massive electrification works lie 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 of changing of traction is done away with, it increases mobility and thereby is a leap ahead in improving the punctuality of trains.

Mission 100 Per Cent Electrification

Indian Railways (IR) is working on a mission mode to electrify its entire BG network to provide environment friendly, green & clean mode of transport to its people under the ‘Mission 100 per cent Electrification - Moving towards net Zero Carbon Emission’ plan.

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

The target for electrification during the current financial year is 6500 RKM, out of which 851 RKM has been electrified till 30 September 2022.

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

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

Prior to NCR, four railway zones have achieved 100 per cent electrification. These include - East Coast Railway, South Eastern Railway (SER), West Central Railway (WCR) and Eastern Railway (ER).

Along with, Konkan Railway is also now 100 per cent electrified. The Konkan Railway Corporation completed electrification on its entire 741-kilometre route between Roha in Maharashtra and Thokur in Karnataka in March 2022.