The Hindu Business Line : Concor may source 1,000 wagons from Railway workshops

THE state-owned Indian Railway Workshops at Tiruchirapalli, Hubli and Jamalpur, are likely to receive orders soon for providing a total of 1000 high-speed wagons to Container Corporation of India Ltd (Concor). This order is for meeting Concor's wagon requirement for the financial year 2005-06. The move will primarily help improve the wagon crunch situation faced by Concor.

Currently, Concor has around 3170 high-speed wagons, out of which 540 wagons were acquired during 2003-04. Additionally, Concor will also source another 1200 high-speed wagons from various private players under this tender. "The wagon procurement tender is under finalisation," said senior officials.

While the sources declined to divulge the exact total expenditure, they said, it will be in the range of "a few hundred crores." Majority of the wagons will be sourced from Golden Rock Workshop, Tiruchirapalli, followed by some from Hubli and Jamalpur.

The Railway-container carrier plans to add another 2,000 wagons to its fleet by December 2005. While 800 of these wagons will be sourced from Indian Railways' workshops, another 1200 will be sourced from various private companies including Texmaco and HCI. "By the end of December 2005, the company would have received another 2000 wagons," said the official.

With these orders in place, Concor would be able to more than double its fleet by 2006. As per its present plans, the organisation will have over 5000 wagons by December 2005 and over 7000 wagons by 2006.

Concor enjoys a monopoly over railway haulage of boxes to and from ports since there is "no clear cut Government policy on private sector participation in this sector," point out trade sources. The industry has been demanding that more players be allowed to run container trains.

With over 915 employees, Concor recorded a net profit of Rs 356.27 crore and a turnover of Rs 1,764 crore during 2003-04.