Railways plan for ‘Go-India’ smart card

The Indian Railways plans to introduce on a pilot basis a pan-India, multi-purpose smart card known as ‘Go-India’. The card will be first tried out on the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah sectors, including the Allahabad railway station. In yet another initiative, the Railways has completed a feasibility study, the first phase of a project, to devise methods to reduce emissions from diesel locomotives and ensure that they meet international emission standards. The second phase of the project, which involves developing a prototype of the new emission system for the diesel locomotives, is under process. The Indian Railways consumes about 2.5 billion litres of diesel annually. The Railways also has introduced refrigerated vans to facilitate transport of perishable commodities such as fruits, vegetables, frozen foods, chocolates, milk products and pharmaceuticals. At present the Railways has ten refrigerated parcel vans which are attached to mail / express trains as per demand. Besides this, it has 98 insulated and ventilated containers which run as special trains on demand. These containers have been procured by Container Corporation of India (CONCOR), an Indian Railways subsidiary.