Indian Railways May Procure Trains From Private Industry; 320 Vande Bharat Express Types Of Trains In Offing

The Indian Railways is mulling over the idea of buying readymade trains from private players instead of manufacturing them at its production units, reports The Hindu.

According to the report, the idea of procuring trainsets, Electric Multiple Unit (EMU) and Mainline Electric Multiple Unit (MEMU) from the private players was mooted at a recent high-level meeting of Union Minister of Railways Piyush Goyal and top officials and manufacturers of trains/coach components in New Delhi.

Currently, the rakes for the Railways are procured from three production units - the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) Chennai, Mordern Coach Factory (MCF) Raebareli and Rail Coach Factory (RCF) Kapurthala.

At the meeting, it was reportedly concluded that a considered view should be taken on buying complete train sets from trade instead of procuring propulsion equipment and manufacture of a car body and equipping the same in production units.

As per the report, it was revealed at the meeting that the Railways planned to roll out over 2,000 rakes, including 320 Vande Bharat Express types of trains and 124 rakes for Kolkata Metro, in the next three years.

However, the Railways Minister made it clear that the procurement of propulsion equipment or complete trains should be done in accordance with the ‘Make in India’ policy.