Energy accounts for 25 per cent of working expenses on the Indian Railways out of which 15 per cent is spent on diesel and 10 per cent on electricity. At present 28 per cent of Route kilometres on Indian Railways is electrified which further needs to be expanded.

It was almost 76 years ago that the first Electric train ran in India with the inauguration of services between Bombay VT and Kurla Harbour on 3rd February 1925. The section was electrified on 1500 volt DC. With this development India was the 24th country in the world, 3rd in Asia and first in British Empire to adopt electric traction on its railways.

Later developments proved the importance and necessity of electric traction for railway operations the world over for increase in track capacity, higher productivity, better energy efficiency, clean, comfortable, non-polluting and environment friendly transport, ability to negotiate steep gradients and regeneration of energy.

Electric traction was subsequently extended on Central Railway upto Igatpuri on Northeast line and Pune on Southeast line where heavy gradients on the Western Ghats compelled introduction of electric traction. 1500 volt DC traction was introduced on the Suburban section of Western Railway between Colaba and Borivilli on 5th January, 1928 and between Madras Beach and Tambaram of Southern Railway on 15th November, 1931. Thus, before dawn of Independence, India had 388 kms of DC electrification.

In the post Independence era, the work of electrification of Howrah-Burdwan section of Eastern Railways was taken up on 3000 volt DC during the period of 1st Five Year Plan.

The EMU services were inaugurated in Howrah-Sheoraphulli section by Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, first Prime Minister of India, on 14th December, 1957. As a result of the extensive research and trials in Europe, particularly in French Railways (SNCF), 25 kv AC system of traction emerged as an economical system of Electrification. Indian Railways decided in 1957 to adopt 25 kv AC system of electrification as a standard with SNCF as their consultant in the initial stages.

In the wake of industrial development, in the Eastern region, due to the setting up of steel plants large scale movement of Iron and Coal, substantial growth in freight traffic, which could not be managed by steam traction, electrification and dieselisation had to be introduced in early sixties to cope up with the growing traffic. The first section to be electrified on 25 kv AC system was Raj Kharswan - Dongoposi of South Eastern Railway in the year 1959. With a view to provide continuity of traction system, Howrah - Burdwan section of Eastern Railway and Madras Beach - Tambaram section of Southern Railway were converted to 25 kv AC system by 1968.

Production of Electric locomotives was simultaneously taken up indigenously at Chittaranjan Locomotive Works (CLW) in 1960 and the first 1500 v DC electric locomotive for Bombay area “Lokmanya” was flagged off on 14.10.1961 by Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru. The manufacture of Electric Multiple Units (EMUs) required for Kolkata suburban services was taken up indigenously at Integral Coach Factory (ICF), Chennai and the first EMU rolled out during September 1962.

First Electric Locomotive was flagged off by Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru, First Prime Minister of India on 14.10.1962. The electrification of First trunk route from Howrah to Delhi was completed on 05/08/1976 and subsequently, electric traction was inducted on the 2nd trunk route from Bombay to Delhi i.e. between the Commercial Capital and Political Capital of India via Western Railway on 1st February, 1988.

Making a modest beginning with 1500 volt DC electric traction on a small section of 16 kms. between Bombay VT and Kurla Harbour on 3rd February, 1925, Indian Railways are today having 18942 route kms of its tracks under the electric traction system as on 31st March, 2009. This covers major trunk routes namely Howrah-Delhi, Howrah-Mumbai, Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Chennai, Chennai-Bangalore, Howrah-Chennai-Ernakulam-Trivendram and Delhi-Amritsar. Today about 60 per cent of the freight and about 47 per cent of passenger traffic is hauled by electric traction on Indian Railways.

After the completion of 2nd Five Year Plan, Indian Railways had electrified 216 Route kms on 25 kv AC. During the Third Plan, along with considerable indigenization, electrification was extended over another 1678 Route kms. The pace of electrification, however, slowed down until the oil crisis of seventies. The second oil crisis in particular brought to the fore the need for evolving a long term policy for electrification to reduce the dependence of Railways on petroleum based energy.

In the context of shift from petroleum based energy in transport sector, the Secretaries Committee on energy headed by Cabinet Secretary decided in July 1980 that the Railways should speed up electrification at a pace of 1000 Route kms/year. Accordingly, the pace of electrification was considerably speeded up and Indian Railways achieved progress of 2812 Route kms during the 7th Plan, 2708 Route kms during 8th Plan and 2484 Route kms during 9th Plan making it a total of 16001 Route kms. In the recently concluded 10th Plan, electrification of 1810 Route kms has been achieved which is more than the target of 1800 Route kms.

Six major trunk routes of Golden Quadrilateral and diagonals viz Delhi-Calcutta, Delhi-Mumbai via Central and Western Railways, Delhi-Chennai, Mumbai-Calcutta and Howrah-Chennai have already been fully electrified. Electrification of remaining Mumbai-Chennai Route (Nandalur-Pune) is in progress. A total of 18942 Route kms has been electrified up to 31.03.2009 by Indian Railways, mostly on heavy density routes.

During the XI Five Year Plan period from 2007-08 to 2012-13, it is projected to achieve Railway Electrification of 3500-4000 route kilometres and electrification work at the rate of 700 route kilometres per year will have to be resorted to. In the first two years of XI plan, 1299 Route kms have been electrified. (PIB Features)