Kumar Mangalam Birla. File.
| Photo Credit: PTI
Aditya Birla Group’s Hindalco Industries Ltd. will invest ₹2,000 crore in a railway related green-transportation project, Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla informed the shareholders at the company’s AGM held here.
“Indian Railways has the laudable goal of becoming Net Zero while concurrently doubling freight capacity,” Mr. Birla said. “Hindalco is going all out to support the Railway’s carbon goals. We have already commercialised India’s first all-aluminium light-weight rake which is not just enabling higher speed and more payload per trip but will save over 14,500 tonnes of CO2 over its lifetime,” Mr. Birla said.
“We plan to introduce three more designs of freight wagons in the coming months targeting specific end use applications, including bagged cement, and foodgrains. We are even more excited to partner the Indian Railways and the passenger coach manufacturing ecosystem for the ambitious high speed Vande Bharat trains,” he added.
“An investment of ₹2,000 crore is planned for the project and technology tie-ups are in place to bring new extrusion and fabrication technologies to India,” Mr. Birla further said.
Hindalco has no plans for fabrication of coaches. The investment is likely in a facility for making extrusions that would be used by railway coach manufacturers, an official clarified.
For the electric-vehicle (EV) sector the company’s projects for battery foils, coated aluminium fins, aerospace grade extrusions were also on track “to make Hindalco an ideal partner for multiple industries to support their new product development and make in India initiatives,” he said.
Mr. Birla said Hindalco had embarked on a growth phase at Novelis and India business with a total capital expenditure of $4.63 billion for India and Novelis in projects that were under execution.
“Novelis has growth projects totaling $3.5 billion underway in the U.S., South Korea, and Brazil to serve the increasing demand for sustainable aluminium products. Hindalco’s India business has ongoing growth projects of around $1.13 billion under execution which include high-growth downstream projects in e-mobility, packaging, building and construction, consumer durables, and resource securitisation,” he told shareholders.