Indian Railways Targets Carbon Neutrality by 2030

GS Paper III Environment and Ecology

Context:

Indian Railways aims to achieve carbon neutrality by planting three billion trees before 2030.

Carbon neutrality means having a balance between emitting carbon and absorbing carbon from the atmosphere in carbon sinks.

Tree Plantation: Neem, pilkhan, jamun on both sides of the tracks,
Hybrid electric Locomotives: To completely remove the diesel engines, it has initiated the development of battery-operated hybrid electric locomotives and ethanol-blended fuel.
- These locomotives are equipped with regenerative braking features capable of generating electricity during braking action
Harnessing solar power: Indian Railways has planned to utilize its unused vacant land parcels for setting up solar plants.
- There is about 51,000 hectares of railway land that have the potential of installing 20 gigawatt (GW) land-based solar plants.
Automatic coach-washing plants: The railways are setting up automatic coach-washing plants at all rail depots to minimize the use of water for cleaning trains.
Use of LED lights: A total of 1,327 railway stations have now been provided with LED illumination. Also, all newly manufactured coaches are fitted with LED lights. This is likely to have a saving of around INR6,000 per coach per annum.

Attempt the PY Prelims Question

With reference to bio-toilets used by the Indian Railways, consider the following statements:

The decomposition of human waste in the bio-toilets in initiated by a fungal inoculum.
Ammonia and water vapour are the only end products in this decomposition which are released into the atmosphere.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?