NEW DELHI :
Indian Railways is about to drift a mega tender within the June quarter to acquire 30,000 freight wagons yearly over the subsequent three years at an estimated price of over ₹35,000 crore, mentioned two individuals conversant in the matter.
Particulars of the tender are being finalized, the individuals mentioned requesting anonymity. The tender will set a file for the railways, which has by no means procured greater than 15,000 wagons in a single yr, providing an enormous enhance to home manufacturing of rail wagons.
Texmaco Rail and Engineering Ltd, Titagarh Wagons Ltd, Jindal Rail Infrastructure Ltd, and Jupiter Wagons are among the many main wagon producers within the nation. The federal government’s plan is to revive manufacturing in a sector that has been grappling with low capability utilization due to muted demand from the railways. The massive order measurement is in sync with expectations of a future demand push from devoted freight corridors and the necessity to make rakes obtainable all year long for bulk freight shoppers.
“The stakeholder’s session for the wagon tender has been accomplished and it might be issued very quickly, as early as late subsequent month. The transfer will give an enormous fillip to the home wagon manufacturing business and permit the railways to satisfy the rising demand,” mentioned one of many individuals cited above.
Queries despatched to the railway ministry on 2 March remained unanswered until press time. “The business had by no means equipped greater than 15,000 wagons. It’s a problem for the business as nicely. Whereas the put in capability of the business is about 30,000 wagons, it has by no means been examined. The business is working at a lot decrease capacities and a couple of,500 wagons per thirty days could not occur initially although numbers will step by step ramp up,” mentioned Texmaco Rail & Engineering managing director Ashish Kumar Gupta.
The 2 individuals cited above mentioned the Railways would use the popular reverse e-auction mannequin for the freight wagon tender to permit the second-lowest bidder to get a portion of the tender if the bottom bidder isn’t capable of serve your complete order. Apart from assembly future development in demand, the order can also be prone to scale back the price of wagons by as much as 20% as competitors will drive down costs.
The carrying capability of the nationwide transporter is about to nearly double to greater than 2,400 million tonnes per yr, with the development of devoted freight corridors. It will require the railways to reinforce wagon capability to make the most of the obtainable infrastructure. Additionally, the railways has set an inner goal of enhancing its freight loading from barely lower than 4 million tonnes per day at the moment to greater than 5 million tonnes. This would want an extra 100,000 wagons, which the proposed tender goals to realize over three years.
In accordance with authorities officers, relying on the progress of tenders within the preliminary yr, the scale of wagon procurement could also be enhanced in subsequent years. The ministry hopes that the scale of the worldwide tender would additionally encourage international traders to contemplate constructing wagon manufacturing services in India, which can be a lift to the federal government’s Make in India initiative.
The railways has set a freight earnings goal of ₹1.65 trillion in FY23, up from ₹1.37 trillion in FY22. The budgetary provisions for wagon procurement for FY23 at ₹7,978 crore, nevertheless, look muted as compared with the most recent push in direction of native manufacturing, however authorities officers mentioned the funds is probably not a constraint and, relying on the evolving state of affairs, the determine could possibly be enhanced in the course of the yr.
Supply: Live Mint