Railways plan to save energy worth Rs 41,000 cr in 10 yrs: minister

Chennai: Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu today said his Ministry has drawn up an action plan to save energy worth Rs 41,000 crore over the next ten years.

"I have prepared an action plan and it has been presented to the public (domain) also, that Rs 41,000 crore can be saved on energy during the next 10 years," Prabhu said at a conference by Confederation of Indian Industry, here.

He said, through such an initiative, the Ministry has already saved almost Rs 4,000 crore on energy.

Referring to the allocation of Rs 1.21 lakh crore in the Union Budget presented last month, Prabhu said out of the Rs 1.21 lakh crore, the Ministry will get Rs 55,000 crore as "gross budget."

"So what will happen to the remaining Rs 66,000 crore? We have to raise them," he said.

Noting that the Ministry has undertaken an exercise to ensure faster processing of tenders, he said, instead of waiting to obtain an approval at the Ministerial level, now it is being done by the General Manager.

Calling for more efficiency and transparency in the operations of the railways, he said, "If you tell us where we need to bring in transparency, we will bring it."

On management of ministry's expenses, he said the Ministry had earned about Rs 3,500 crore by selling scrap materials.