Railways to set up 3 production units under JV

Tiruchirapalli, Jul 23 (UNI) The Indian Railway will set up three production units under joint venture at a total outlay of Rs 4,400 crore, Railway Board Member (mechanical) Raj Kamal Rao said today.

Addressing the mediapersons after flagging off two metre-gauge locomotives and 23 refurbished MG coaches for Tanzanian Railways at the Golden Rock Railway Workshop (GOC) here, he said the production units were expected to meet the requirement for rail coaches and diesel and electric locomotives, arose out of the continuous growth in passenger and freight traffic.

Under the joint venture, a new railway coach factory would be set up at Raibareli in Uttar Pradesh at an investment of Rs 1,200 crore.

A diesel locomotive unit at Madora in Bihar and an electric locomotive unit at Madepura in Bihar would also be set up at a cost of Rs 1,600 crore each.

He said the Railway Board was in the process of floating global tenders to finalise the private partner for the proposed projects.

But the units would take at least two to three years to roll out its products, he added.

The Railways had been adding 60 million tonne goods every year for the last three years and this figure was likely to go up in the current fiscal. There was a 12 per cent growth in passenger traffic every year. Apart from setting up the new units, the production capacity of the existing units would be increased to meet the requirement.

He said besides producing staninless steel wagons, the Railways had plans to increase the capacity of the existing wagons from 18.5 tonnes to 22.9 tonnes.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Carmelus, Southern Railway Chief Mechanical Engineer, claimed that this was the first time the Indian Railway was exporting such a huge consignment. The Rail India Technical and Economic Services (RITES) had bagged an order for five more diesel locomotives from Malaysia, he added.

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