Visakhapatnam: 4 e-vehicles launched at Waltair division

Visakhapatnam: Replacing diesel vehicles, Waltair division has launched electric vehicles to meet its day-to-day assets maintenance and operations of the railways.

A first-of-its-kind initiative of the East Coast Railway, the move aims at reducing maintenance cost of the vehicles and bringing down pollution level.

At present, four e-vehicles have been deployed in Visakhapatnam. Depending on the response, more e-vehicles will be added to the fleet, according to railway officials.

Currently, 40 diesel vehicles are used for the transportation of the staff and other purposes in Waltair division. Of them, four are replaced with e-vehicles.

Keeping the rising pollution level in view, Waltair division has taken the decision to switch over to the alternative energy-fuelled vehicles in place of diesel ones to carry out its day-to-day work. The fixed and operating cost of the electric vehicles is comparatively much less than the diesel-operated ones.

Elaborating on the move further, Divisional Railway Manager, Waltair division, Chetan Kumar Shrivastava said that it was the first time the Indian Railways has deployed e-rickshaws for transporting the crew from their booking points to the yards and various other locations.

"Once charged, these e-rickshaws will run for 60-km a day. It is certainly going to save a lot of fuel. We hope that other railways too take up such green initiatives," he mentioned.

ECoR Women's Welfare Organisation (ECoRWWO) extended its financial support in procuring the battery-operated vehicles. President of ECoRWWO Shalini Shrivastava said that more such green initiatives will be taken up in future as well.

While the yearly average expenditure incurred to hire a vehicle is around Rs 8.43 lakh, the cost of an e-rickshaw is about Rs.2 lakh.

The e-vehicle takes about four to five hours to get charged completely, consuming six units of electric power. Each vehicle consists of four batteries.