History
History of Railway Electrification on Indian Railways
After commencement of first Railway service between Mumbai & Thane in 1853, first electric train was run between Mumbai & Thane in year 1925 i.e., roughly after 75 years of Railway working. With industrial growth of the country & increasing need for environment friendly mode of transportation, focus in Indian Railways gradually shifted to electric traction. After independence of the country, first 5 year plan (1951-56) had a small target of electrification of 141 RKM of tracks. The target kept gradually increasing and in12th five year plan (2012-17) had a challenging target of electrification of 6500 RKM of tracks. The targets are increasing manifold every year.
Railway Electrification as an organization was set up in 1961, with mandate to electrify Indian Railway tracks as approved by Govt. of India. The unit initially based at Kolkata was called PORE (Project office for Railway Electrification) & was headed by an Engineer- in- Chief. However, owing to growing emphasis on electrification, a separate unit called Central Organization for Railway Electrification (CORE) was set up, with headquarter at Allahabad. The unit is currently headed by a General Manager.
Indian Railways, the life line of India, is taking the lead in reducing the nation’s dependence on petroleum-based energy by rapid electrification of railway tracks.
In recent years, the Central Organization for Railway Electrification (CORE) has contributed the majority of total electrified sections of Indian Railway.
It has electrified 58,812 Route kilometers (RKM) that is about 90% of the total Broad-Gauge network of Indian Railways (65300 RKM) by March 31, 2023. CORE plans to electrify all BG routes of Indian Railway by December 2023.
In order to electrify important railway routes for harnessing maximum benefits from their traffic potential, eight project units of CORE are operational at Ahmedabad, Ambala, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Jaipur,Lucknow and Secunderabad.
With rapid electrification on Indian Railways in the 44 years since its inception, CORE has thus achieved substantial savings in foreign exchange reserves since a large component of petroleum-based energy resources is still imported.
