The Hindu Business Line : Railways to expand capacities of workshops

Tiruchi, July 23 The Railways has accorded sanction to carry out expansion works in the railway workshops in the country, Mr Raj Kamal Rao, Member (Mechanical), Railway Board, said on Wednesday.

Speaking to presspersons at the Golden Rock Railway Workshop here, Mr Rao said owing to unprecedented growth in traffic volume — both passenger and freight — in the past four years, the Railways has embarked on the task of enhancing its capacity by adopting new technologies.The Diesel Loco Works at Varanasi will manufacture 250 diesel engines this year, while the Chittaranjan Loco Works will produce 220 electric engines in the current fiscal. The capacity of the Integral Coach Factory at Perambur in Chennai and the Rail Coach Factory in Kapurthala had also been augmented. To meet the increasing demand, the Railways had switched over to stainless wagons with a higher payload.

The Railways will set up two new factories in Bihar to manufacture locomotives and a passenger coach manufacturing unit at Rae Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh as part of its effort to augment the capacity in order to meet the increasing traffic demand. While the new plant in Madora will manufacture diesel engines, the factory at Madhepura will produce electric engines. All three factories would be a joint venture between the Railways and a private partner and are expected to be commissioned in two-three years’ time, he said. Each of the new loco plant will have the capacity to manufacture 100 engines per year, while the coach factory at Rae Bareilly will roll out 1,000 passenger coaches every year. The diesel locos, which will roll out from the Madora plant, would be better than the General Motors locomotives, he said.

The Railways had planned to procure 20,000 wagons in the current fiscal as compared with 15,000 wagons last year. Highlighting the growth achieved in passenger and freight fronts in the last four years, Mr Rao said 60 million tonnes of freight had been added every year for the past three years.

“In the current year, we plan to do better than that.” Passenger growth was 12 per cent every year, he said adding that the Railways achieved a profit of Rs 26,000 crore during 2007-08.

The Railways has been doing well in earnings in the last two years and working on cutting down expenditure, he said.