ICF to increase annual coach production

Chennai, Sep 9 (UNI) The Railway Ministry has sanctioned to increase the annual rail coach production of Integral Coach Factory (ICF) here to 1500 coaches from the existing capacity of 1200, according to Union Minister of State for Railways R Velu.

Inaugurating the eight Bay at the furnishing division at ICF, Mr Velu pointed out that the sanction was made in order to reduce cost of production per unit of rail coach. The cost of production of ICF was high compared to Rail Coach Factory at Kapurtala.

He said for the proposed increase of the annual production, the Railway Board had allocated a sum of Rs 54.8 crore for creating adequate infrastructure facilities.

Apart from this, the Board had sanctioned Rs 300 crore to the ICF for the past three years to implement various additional projects which includes Rs 49.4 crore for improving existing technical facilities, Rs 2.42 crore for establishing testing facility for EMU rakes and Rs 4.6 crore for establishing a state-of-the-art advanced welding training Centre. The Centre was expected to be ready by April 2008, he added.

He said it was also proposed to increase the annual production of the spring shop of the ICF from 35,000 to 50,000 per annum at an estimated cost of Rs 37.9 crore, as demand for spring from other railways were increasing day-by-day.

He said the first Garib Rath train would be introduced between Amritsar and Sahirsa on October two next. Similar trains would be introduced on New Delhi-Mumbai, New Delhi-Patna and New Delhi-Chennai sector in due course, he added.

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