Raghvendra Rao Indian Railways' plan to use state-of-the-art technology to operate Electrical Multiple Units (EMUs) in the Mumbai suburban area, primarily aimed at reducing greenhouse gases and earning them carbon credits, is now on track with the Railways Ministry finalising the project design and initiating the process of getting approval from the Environment Ministry. The project essentially envisages adoption of a three-phase Insulated Gate Bi Polar Transistor (IGBT) technology on the three-phase EMUs in the Mumbai suburban area of the Western and Central Railways. "The passenger trains on the Mumbai suburban section draw electricity from the Over Head Equipment (OHE) and have the regenerative braking system which makes use of kinetic energy, that is normally lost upon braking, and converts it to reusable electrical energy,' explained a railway official. Simply put, the kinetic energy gained from a decelerating train is converted into electrical energy and is fed back into the system. Indian Railways is currently in the process of replacing the existing EMUs with the new ones fitted with regenerative brakes (three phase IGBT), which are capable of regenerating 25 to 30 per cent of the total energy used. Railways hope to commission around 430 EMUs with regenerative braking in 2009-10 and another 500 the following year. According to official estimates, using this system railways hope to reduce greenhouse gases by 5.21 lakh tonnes of CO2e (Carbon dioxide equivalents) over a ten-year period, between 2009 and 2019. Following a clearance from the Environment Ministry, Railways plan to get the project registered with the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). "We have already signed a letter of intent with the World Bank for having this project under the CDM,' a Rail Bhavan official told The Indian Express. Officials said the Railway Ministry would extend the project to other areas in the country. "We have decided that all future technology used in EMU's locomotives, MEMUs and Metros will be three-phase state-of-the-art technology,' said a senior official. Arguing that the project fulfils all the four indicators