ANALYSIS OF FACTORS FOR ENHANCING ENERGY CONSERVATION IN INDIAN RAILWAY WORKSHOPS: A CASE STUDY

Indian Railways (IR) has 41 workshops spread over the entire nation which are into maintenance of its fleet of rolling stock viz. the locomotives, coaches and wagons, and also undertake the manufacturing of components required for maintenance. These workshops are grand old establishments set up mainly during the British raj for maintenance of bygone era steam locomotives, wooden bodied coaches and rivetted body wagons. These workshops employ thousands of technical manpower and are also energy intensive in nature mainly consuming electricity, diesel and LPG. An empirical study was undertaken covering two railway workshops viz., Carriage Repair workshop, Hubli (UBLS) and Central Workshops, Mysore (MYSS) to understand the different variables which affect the usage and conservation of energy. The respondents were officers and engineers (Senior Section Engineers) of these two workshops who are technically qualified and have rich experience. The cumulative experience of 71 respondents of UBLS was 1491 years which means the average experience per respondent was 21 years. From the face to face interviews with the respondents in both the workshops 25 variables were included for data collection. Questionnaire was designed covering all the 25 variables and administered to respondents in both the workshops separately and their preferences were recorded on a five point Lickerts scale. Totally, 128 respondents out of the population of 375 i.e. one third of the population filled up the questionnaire with 71 being from UBLS and 57 from MYSS. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) method of extraction of factors for the combined data resulted in emergence of 8 factors. They include 'Motivation to employees', 'Knowledge and attitude', 'Preventive measures', Timely decision making', 'Motivation for energy conservation', 'Management role', 'Procurement process', and 'Human factor'. The outcome of the study has greater policy implications as sustainable development demands new strategies, solutions and policy making approaches