In A First For North East, Railways Plan To Set Up Rail Coach Factory In Assam

Ministry of Railways has received a proposal from North East Frontier Railway for establishing Rail Coach Factory in Bodoland Territorial Council at Assam.

This information was given by the Union Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw in a written reply to the Lok Sabha on 21 November.

This would be the first-of-its-kind factory in east and northeast India and is expected to generate considerable employment for residents of north Bengal and the neighbouring state of Assam.

As of now, the railways have three operational rail coach factories. These include:

• Integral Coach Factory (ICF) at Chennai in Tamil Nadu,

• Rail Coach Factory (RCF) at Kapurthala in Punjab and

• Modern Coach Factory (MCF) at Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh.

The proposed rail coach factory is likely to come up on the Bengal-Assam border at a location that falls under the Alipurduar division of the North East Frontier Railway (NFR).

According to news reports, the factory is likely to come up somewhere in Kokrajhar, a district in Assam that shares borders with Bengal. Also, Kokrajhar is one of the four districts of Assam which is under the Bodoland Territorial Council.

Bodoland Territorial Region is an autonomous region within the state of Assam comprising of four districts viz, Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baksa and Udalguri wherein Kokrajhar is the administrative headquarter. It derives its name from the Bodo tribe - the largest ethnic community of the region.

It is administered by the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) that was constituted, under the sixth schedule of the Indian constitution, to fulfil economic, educational and linguistic aspirations and to preserve the land-rights, socio-cultural and ethnic identity of the Bodo community and to accelerate holistic development in the BTC area.

The project is a part of the Rail Ministry’s ambitious target to start 100 per cent indigenous manufacturing of rail coaches by December 2022.