Bihar Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary on Friday, 17 July 2026, shared a striking statistic attributed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, highlighting that India has achieved nearly 99% electrification of its rail network in the last 12 years — a feat that eluded the country for nearly nine decades prior.

Quoting the Prime Minister, CM Choudhary wrote: '1925 से लेकर 2014 तक करीब 90 साल में पूरे देश के रेल नेटवर्क का करीब 30% ही बिजलीकरण हो पाया था' — ('From 1925 to 2014, in roughly 90 years, only about 30% of the entire country's rail network had been electrified'). The post also carried the hashtag #Hydrogen_train, signalling the next frontier in India's green rail ambitions.

Context

Electrification of Indian Railways began in 1925 on a section of the then Great Indian Peninsula Railway, making it one of the earliest electrified rail systems in Asia. However, progress over the following nine decades was incremental: by 2014, roughly 70% of the network still ran on diesel traction, with only about 30% electrified.

The post frames the period from 2014 to 2026 as a decisive turning point, during which the share of electrified routes climbed from 30% to approximately 99% — compressing nearly a century's worth of unfinished work into a single decade.

Policy Backdrop

Successive five-year plans after independence did expand electrified routes, but the pace remained slow due to capital constraints and competing priorities. A formal push for full broad-gauge electrification was reiterated in railway budget documents from 2015 onward, with annual targets set for route kilometres converted.

The accelerated electrification drive has been positioned by the central government as a core pillar of India's decarbonisation strategy in transport. Eliminating diesel traction reduces both fuel import costs and carbon emissions, while also lowering operational expenditure for Indian Railways. Parallel investments in Dedicated Freight Corridors and high-speed rail projects have further reinforced the need for a fully electrified backbone.

Stakeholders and Impact

The shift from diesel to electric traction directly benefits railway passengers through faster, quieter, and more reliable services. Freight operators stand to gain from lower haulage costs and more consistent schedules on electrified corridors.

The hashtag #Hydrogen_train in CM Choudhary's post points to the next phase: a pilot initiative to introduce hydrogen fuel-cell trains on routes where electrification may be impractical — such as heritage lines or remote stretches — positioning hydrogen as a zero-emission complement rather than a replacement for the electrified network.

What's Next

With the broad-gauge electrification target nearly complete, attention is turning to the commercial rollout of hydrogen trains and the integration of solar and wind energy into railway traction supply — moves that would make Indian Railways not just electrified but genuinely green-powered.

As Bihar remains one of the states with significant rail traffic for both passengers and freight, CM Choudhary's amplification of this milestone underscores the political salience of railway modernisation ahead of upcoming electoral cycles in the state.