PM Modi To Launch All-Electric Superfast Train, A Make-In-India Leap: 10 Facts

Motihari, Bihar:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Bihar today to join in the centenary celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi’s Champaran Satyagraha. The year-long celebration by the Bihar government ends today. The Prime Minister has pitched the occasion as a celebration of his Clean India mission, calling it the "Satyagrah se Swachhagrah" campaign. Nearly 20,000 "Swacchagrahis" or cleanliness ambassadors, from across the country have been camping in Motihari, more than 150 km from state capital Patna, to take part in today’s programme.

Here is your 10-point guide to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bihar visit:

1. The other high-point of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bihar visit will be the flagging off of India’s first all-electric high-speed locomotive, developed at Madhepura’s Electric Locomotive Factory. The train is the first big Make-in-India project completed by Alstom of France.
2. The electric locomotive, with a 12,000 horsepower engine, will have a maximum speed of 120 km per hour, according to Alstom. This will be the first of 40 locomotives expected to roll out of the factory by the end of March 2020. Under the agreement with Alstom, India will get 800 high horsepower electric locomotives over the next 11 years, at a cost of Rs 20,000 crore.
3. According to Alstom, the all-electric locomotives will aim to bring down operating costs for the Railways and also reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
4. In Motihari, PM Modi will address the 20,000 Swachhagrahis, who are ‘foot soldiers’ and motivators to implement the Community Approaches to Sanitation at the village level, a communique from his office said.
5. Swachhagrahis are key to driving progress towards achieving an open defecation free nation, the communique said.
6. A sprawling tent city, ‘Swachhagram’, has been erected in Motihari to accommodate the sanitation volunteers who have come from other states.
7. PM Modi is also likely to flag off a new bi-weekly train, Humsafar Express, connecting Katihar to New Delhi.
8. He is expected to launch the electrification work on the Motihari-Muzaffarpur rail line, and the doubling of Muzaffarpur-Narkatiyaganj railway track.
9. PM Modi will also unveil several development projects on this occasion, including four big-ticket sewerage projects in Patna. Together, the plants will create a sewage-treatment capacity of 60 million litres daily under Clean Ganga programme, Namami Gange.
10. Mahatma Gandhi had launched the Champaran Satyagrah over a century ago, on 10th April, 1917 against the Britishers to fight for the rights of farmers who were forced to undertake indigo cultivation.
11. Source: NDTV