NEW DELHI, Oct. 27 (Xinhua) -- Indian Minister of Railways Piyush Goyal launched the first set of solar plants with a total capacity of 5 megawatt (MW) here on Friday, officials said.
"Piyush Goyal today dedicated solar power plant of 5 MW to the nation. This is the first largest plant commissioned by Indian railway on the roof top of Hazrat Nizamuddin, New Delhi, Anand Vihar and Delhi railway stations," a government spokesman said.
The project is part of the Indian government's national solar mission in which Indian railways plans to commission 1,000 MW solar plants across its network.
Goyal also inaugurated the international conference on green initiatives and railway electrification.
"Indian railways have set a massive target of 100 percent electrification, meeting this huge target is a challenge. This conference will provide an insight how we may achieve this target. Also, green initiatives and adopting viable sources of energy over Indian railways has been our priority in past three years," Goyal said.
In July this year, to cut down the use of diesel, Indian railways inducted first solar-panelled train in an effort to run country's vast rail network on clean energy.
With the induction of solar powered trains, India joined the club of select-few countries to run trains on alternative fuel.
The Indian government in 2015 announced an investment of over 137 billion U.S. dollars over a period of next five years to boost railways and modernize new lines.
Indian sprawling railways is the world's third largest network, ferrying around 23 million people each day.
