The Hindu Business Line : Siemens to make metro, train coaches in India

Pune, July 3 Engineering and electrical goods major Siemens may soon set up a facility to manufacture coaches for trains and metros in India, thereby launching a completely new business segment in the country.

According to highly reliable sources, the Indian arm of the German company has nearly completed the acquisition of land at Aurangabad in Maharashtra to put up a greenfield plant for the manufacture of “engineering goods including (what has broadly been defined as) rolling stock.”

The sources, however, say that the company intends to begin with the manufacture of metro coaches, adding that work on developing the land, which is adjoining the Skoda plant in the Shendra industrial estate in Aurangabad, is expected to begin in a few weeks. The facility will go on stream by the middle of 2009. Interestingly, the first assemblies of Skoda cars began at one of Siemens’ existing facilities at Aurangabad.

The initial financial outlay of the new factory, part of what is pegged as a mega-project, is understood to be around Rs 500 crore. It is not clear whether this investment will be made by Siemens India or as foreign direct investment from the German parent Siemens AG.

Asked whether the company has plans to manufacture railway coaches in India, Ms Kavita Ghatge, Vice-President, Corporate Communications, Siemens Ltd, said, “We are intensifying our presence in India. We already have a significant presence in Aurangabad with two manufacturing facilities, one for high-voltage switchgear and the other for low-voltage switchgear. We are looking at Aurangabad as a location for supporting our expansion and growth plans in the Industry sector, which includes transportation.”

Worldwide, the Siemens Transportation Systems business unit has been building trains for nearly 150 years, and is a leading manufacturer of complete metro systems.

In India the division supplies equipment to the railway coach factories at Chennai and Kapurthala, and also offers solutions for the railway sector in the field of automation, traction equipment and electrification.

As of now, there is no manufacturing facility for coaches in the country. Should Siemens begin manufacturing them indigenously, it will be the second multinational in the fray. Canadian firm Bombardier Transportation is already setting up the country’s first metro coach factory at Vadodara.

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