Indian Railway is working towards becoming the largest Green Railway in the world and is moving towards becoming a “net zero carbon emitter” before 2030.

Central Railway has achieved 100% Railway Electrification on all Broad Gauge routes (3825 Route Kilometres). The last non-electrified section of Central Railway i.e. Ausa Road- Latur Road (52 RKM) on Solapur Division was electrified on February 23.
Central Railway, now fully electrified on all broad gauge routes, has helped in reducing carbon footprints of 5.204 lakh tons every year and also saves ₹ 1670 crores annually.

Pace of Railway Electrification increased

The pace of Railway Electrification, which is environment friendly and reduces pollution, has increased significantly since 2014.

The railways have planned the electrification of Broad Gauge routes, which will facilitate the elimination of diesel traction resulting in a significant reduction in its carbon footprint and environmental pollution.

The pioneering railway, where the first electric train ran in India between the then Bombay Victoria Terminus (now Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus) and Kurla on Harbour line on February 3, 1925. The section was electrified on 1500 volt DC.

The conversion of DC traction on Mumbai Division of Central Railway to AC traction began in 2001 and progressively-without significant disturbance to the suburban services-was completed in 2016.

Central Railway is strategically located in the middle part of India and it connects most of the Indian cities and other locations with the major cities in its jurisdiction like Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Nasik, Solapur, Kolhapur etc The Punjab Mail Express, Howrah Mail, CSMT-H.

Nizamuddin Rajdhani Exp, Deccan Queen, Vande Bharat, Tejas Express, Konkan Kanya Exp, Pushpak Express, Mahanagari Express, Udyan Express, Shatabdi Express, Hussain Sagar Express, Siddeshwar Express etc are the major prestigious trains run over Central Railway network. The CR also runs suburban local trains i.e. the lifeline of Mumbai on electric traction.

Naresh Lalwani, General Manager, Central Railway said that “Railway is guided by a historical vision of being an environment friendly, efficient, cost-effective, punctual and a modern carrier of passengers as well as the freight in order to serve the growing needs of New India. This will also significantly reduce the fuel bill and earn carbon footprints”.

Electrification offers several advantages including:

• Environmental-friendly mode of transport

• Reduced dependence on imported diesel fuel, thereby saving precious foreign currency and reduced carbon footprints

• Reduced operating cost

• Haulage of heavier freight trains and longer passenger trains with high haulage capacity of Electric Locomotives leading to increased throughput

• Increased sectional capacity by eliminating detention on account of traction change

 Bucking the layoff trend that has hit companies across the spectrum, software major Adobe has said it will not perform company-wide layoffs.

Unlike other Silicon Valley tech giants, Adobe will not do any mass layoffs this year, according to its Chief People Officer Gloria Chen.

In an interview with Bloomberg Television, she said that “We are committed to not having company-wide layoffs.”

“We’re actually committed to continuing to grow here,” Chen said, as Adobe opened its fourth office, based in San Jose, California that has the capacity for 3,000 employees.

In December, Adobe laid off some 100 employees from its sales team amid the rough global macroeconomic conditions.

Adobe said that the company “shifted some employees to positions that support critical initiatives” and removed “a small number” of other jobs.

“Adobe is not doing company-wide layoffs and we are still hiring for critical roles,” the software major had said in a statement.

Adobe will post its Q1 quarterly earnings results on March 15.

The company achieved revenue of $4.53 billion in its fourth quarter of fiscal year 2022, which represents 10 per cent year-over-year growth.

Adobe achieved revenue of $17.61 billion in fiscal year 2022, which represents 12 per cent year-over-year growth.

“Adobe drove record revenue and operating income in fiscal 2022,” said Shantanu Narayen, chairman and CEO, Adobe. “Our market opportunity, unparalleled innovation, operational rigor and exceptional talent position us well to drive our next decade of growth.”

The buffalo milk wholesale prices in Mumbai will shoot up by Rs 5/litre from midnight on Tuesday and could trigger a significant cascading effect on the entire food industry that depends on it as its raw material, milk industry players say.

Portending a hard hit, the Mumbai Milk Producers Association (MMPA) last Friday announced the steep hike in wholesale price of buffalo milk.

The bulk milk prices will go up from Rs 80/litre to Rs 85/litre and will remain in force till August 31, MMPA Executive Committee Member C.K. Singh said.

This will be followed by a similar increase in the retail market by the 3,000-plus retailers in Mumbai for the creamy fresh buffalo milk, which would now sell at around Rs 90 per litre – up from the current Rs 85 per litre – from March 1.

These sharp hikes shall be borne by the ordinary consumers not only in the form of dearer plain milk, but also other milk products that are consumed by households daily.

“This would impact, albeit marginally, the rates of a cup of tea-coffee-ukala-milkshakes, etc, served by restaurants, at the ordinary pavement vendors, or in small eateries,” said MMPA Treasurer Abdul Jabbar Chhawaniwala.

The duo said that there are many other milk products like khoya, paneer, sweetmeats like pedha, barfi, certain north Indian or Bengali sweet varieties which are milk-based which could witness a price hike now.

Prominent milkman in north Mumbai, Mahesh Tiwari rued that the price hike has come on the eve of certain festivals and also the big fat weddings season, which would be hit by the whole-sale milk price hike from Wednesday.

“The demand for milk and milk products goes up at least 30-35 per cent during festivals and even higher for weddings, marriages and other social events, and the new rates would be applicable,” he said.

There’s a string of festivals like Holi, Gudi Padva, Ram Navami, Mahavir Jayanti, Easter after Good Friday, Ramzan Eid, and others in the next couple of months where the celebration budgets would have to be expanded, says Singh.

The hike has been necessitated to offset the increased prices of milch animals as well as their food items like dana, tuvar-chuni, chana-chuni, makai-chuni, udad-chuni, green grass, rice grass, hay, which have seen steep price rises by 15-25 per cent in the past few months, Singh said.

“Inflation has become unbearable, many of the items that make buffalo feed are almost wasted, but we have to buy them at higher rates from the market. So the milk price hike was inevitable, though done reluctantly,” rued MMPA General Secretary Kasim Kashmiri.

Singh avers that normally, any fluctuation in milk prices in Mumbai is usually followed by an increase in milk rates in the rest of the country, too.

On an average, Mumbai consumes over 50 lakh litres of buffalo milk daily, of which more than seven lakh is supplied by the MMPA through its chain of dairies and neighbourhood retailers, through their farms spread in and around the country’s commercial capital.

This is the second major hike by MMPA after September 2022 when the buffalo wholesale milk prices was jacked up from Rs 75 per litre to Rs 80 per litre, making domestic budgets of poor and middle-class families go haywire.

Incidentally, in February 2023, all the major cow milk producers’ associations in Maharashtra, along with other major branded producers, have hiked the prices of cow milk by at least Rs 2 per litre.