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Titagarh Rail Systems, formerly Titagarh Wagons, is planning to about ₹650 crore over the next two years to ramp up capacity of its coach and wagon manufacturing. A portion of the funds will be be utilised for the forged wheels project in consortium with Ramkrishna Forgings.
According to Umesh Chowdhary, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Titagarh Rail Systems, the company invested about ₹250 crore over the last two years to ramp up capacity. The consortium of Titagarh Wagons and Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) is expected to come out with the first prototype for the sleeper version of Vande Bharat trains in two years.
“A significant part of the manufacturing of the superstructure for the Vande Bharat trainsets will be carried out at our factory in Uttarpara. We hope to come out with the first prototype in next two years and the balance trains would be rolled out within four years thereafter,” Chowdhary told businessline.
The consortium of Titagarh Wagons and BHEL had emerged as the second lowest bidder for manufacturing and maintenance of Vande Bharat trainsets. The consortium on Wednesday signed a contract with Indian Railways to make 80 sleeper trains by 2029. The contract, estimated at ₹24,000 crore, includes maintenance for 35 years.
“The supply value for these trainsets would be close to ₹10,000 crore and another ₹14,000 crore would go towards maintenance,” he said.
Ramping up capacities
Talking about the company’s plans, Chowdhary said that it would be expanding capacity of the coach manufacturing plant at Uttarpara. Besides, it has plans to expands capacity of its wagon factory and ramp up ancillary capacity.
In one of its recent earnings calls, Titagarh had said that the company is planning to increase the wagon manufacturing capacity by nearly 15-20 per cent to 800-900 wagons per month. It currently has a capacity to produce about 700 wagons and produces 630 to 650 wagons a month.
Also read: Railways to launch five new Vande Bharat trains on June 26
Titagarh Rail-Ramkrishna Forgings consortium has also been declared the lowest bidder (L1) by the Ministry of Railways for manufacturing and supplying of forged wheels under the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ initiative.
The consortium will set up a wheel test centre for prototype testing of newly designed wheels. It is planning to set up a manufacturing facility in India for forged wheel production. The consortium will supply about 1.6-million-wheel discs of different rolling stocks of Indian Railways over a period of 20 years at about 80,000 wheels per annum.
“The expansion will be funded through a mixture of funds. We have signed up with Smallcap World Fund, a part of Capital Group to raise ₹300 crore through preferential issue. This apart, the expansion will be funded through internal accruals and a small portion of debt,” he said.
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