Current Affairs - Persons - Discussion

India's first high-speed electric locomotive has been flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the Madhepura Electric Locomotive Factory in Bihar on April 10, 2018. It has a 12000 horsepower (HP) engine with a maximum speed of 110 km per hour. The first big Make-in-India project is developed & completed in collaboration with French firm Alstome. As per Indian Railways & Alstome pact, 800 such trains will be manufactured in the country over a period of 11 years. The Rs 20,000-crore project includes the Rs 1,300 crore cost for setting up the factory at Madhepura and two loco maintenance depots at Saharanpur (Uttar Pradesh) and Nagpur (Maharashtra), beside building 800 locos. The average cost of each locomotive is estimated to be Rs 25 crore. With this induction, India will join an elite list of countries, including Russia, China, Germany and Sweden, that have 12,000 HP and above capacity electric locomotives.