India's first electric locomotive to be flagged off today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be the flagging off India's first all electric high speed locomotive developed at Madhepura's Electric Locomotive Factory.

The train is the first big Make In Project completed by Alstom of France.

The electric locomotive, with a 12000 Horse Power Engine will have a maximum speed of 120 km per hour, according to Alstom.

This will be the first of 40 locomotives expected to roll out of the factory by the end of March 2020.

Under the agreement with Alstom, India will get 800 high horsepower electric locomotives over the next 11 years, at a cost of Rs. 20,000 crore.

The Indian Railways is looking to manufacture 800 electric train engines over the next 11 years to meet the requirement of locomotives after the electrification of almost all railway routes.

While 5 locomotives will be assembled at the factory by 2019 and the remaining 795 will be manufactured under the 'Make in India' initiative.

The rolling out of the first locomotive on April 10 will be followed by four more locos in the current fiscal.

About 35 locos will be manufactured at the Madhepura facility in the next fiscal (2019-20) and 60 in 2020-21. The factory will build 100 electric engines per year from the financial year 2021-22.

According to Alstom, the all-electric locomotives will aim to bring down operating costs for the Railways and also reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

This first locomotive is part of a joint venture of the railways with French giant Alstom, signed in 2015 and the first major FDI project in the rail sector.

India will join an elite list countries, including Russia, China, Germany and Sweden, that have 12,000 horsepower (HP) and above capacity electric locomotives.

Till now, the most powerful electric engine in the Indian Railways was of 6,000 HP.