Government think-tank NITI Aayog and the International Transport Forum (ITF) of the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) jointly launched the Decarbonising Transport in Emerging Economies (DTEE) project in India on Wednesday.

With the national transport retrofitting its passenger trains with flexible solar panels, the Indian Railways will now run its fans, lights and mobile charging slots on the coaches on solar energy. Due to the slow running of trains, four passenger trains face the problem of running down of batteries.

In what should have been a major story that was buried under other headlines, India achieved a significant milestone in its Digital India programme when 100,000-gram panchayats, or village councils, across the country were connected through a high-speed optical fibre network called BharatNet.

For a country of Indias size and complexity, where 95 per cent of trading by volume and 70 per cent by value is done through sea, it is very important to develop a sustainable maritime transportation system for economic growth and inclusive development.

Sunil Srivastava, Managing Director, Balaji Railroad Systems Ltd, comments on the dismal state of the Indian Railways, delayed projects, and the government´s role in improving the sector.

Girish Pillai, Advisor-Infrastructure, Indian Railways, has highlighted key features of the Indian Railways´ five-year action plan. Pillai said the National Transport Development Policy Committee has estimated investment till 2032 to be worth Rs 32,00,000 crore.

The Maritime Agenda envisages plans for creation of port capacity of around 3200 MMT for handling the expected traffic of about 2500 MMT by 2020. However, in order to scale up this capacity

Despite having the second largest rail network in the world, Indian Railways (IR) has not been able to bring it on growth trajectory. The rail sector is infested with challenges like snail´s pace expansion and modernisation, poor customer service

Indian Railways´ target of increasing freight tonnage by an incremental 85 million tonnes (mt) in 2015-16, against the traditional annual average of 50 mt, might appear ambitious, but the national transporter believes achieving such growth will not be a big task.