In order to manage the influx of passengers, Indian Railways aimed to build more coaches to give the travel convenience and convenience to the rail passengers. However, the railways’ major production units have failed to meet manufacturing targets of coaches, wheels, locomotives and other rolling stock for the first four months of this financial year, with officials blaming the supply chain disruption due to the Ukraine crisis. Is. A recent performance review of railway production units found that manufacturing of these essential components was well below the proportionate target for the first four months of this financial year.
A review meeting with the General Managers of factories was held under the chairmanship of Railway Board Chairman and CEO VK Tripathi, where the reduction in production till July 25 was flagged off. For example, in the case of EMU/MEMU trains, only 53 coaches – Rail Coach Factory – Kapurthala (28), Integral Coach Factory – Chennai (14), and Modern Coach Factory – Rae Bareli (11) were manufactured. 730 target
Mainline Electric Multiple Unit (MEMU) and EMU trains are deployed on short and medium distance routes and routes connecting urban areas with suburban areas. The production of MEMU rakes (manufacture of paired coaches that a train, excluding loco) has been “extremely low”, which is a serious cause of concern and needs to be addressed immediately, the documents said. has gone.
Concerns were also raised in the meeting over short supply of MEMU/EMU electric propulsion system, 60 KVA transformer and switch cabinet. GM was urged that such issues be “addressed immediately” to ensure there is no “short in production”. The Railways stated that the shortfall in production of MEMU and EMU coaches is mainly due to short supply of “electric” (electrical components) by propulsion suppliers, which in turn arose due to inadequate supply of semiconductors due to the worldwide semiconductor crisis. . ,
“Mass orders placed by Railways for Electrics could not be honored by the suppliers. Industry also could not come to meet the growth in demand for Electrics by Railways. It is likely to improve in the remaining months of this financial year. , and in the remaining months, production will be ramped up,” it said.
Like local train coaches, the production of LHB passenger coaches for long distance trains during the same period was also below the proportionate target – ICF produced 20.4 percent fewer coaches, RCF was behind by 10.2 percent, and MCF by about 56 percent. was. Railways said the shortfall in production of LHB coaches was mainly due to disruption in the supply chain of forged wheels, mostly being imported from Ukraine, which has been embroiled in a war with Russia since February.
“A ship loaded with wheel discs was stuck in Ukraine. Now the problem has been resolved. All deficiencies will be filled during the remaining months,” the railways said. Documents show that the July meeting discussed how short supplies of propulsion systems, traction motors and locomotive wheels were acting as a major obstacle in achieving production targets.
“It was noted that despite not meeting the supply commitments, the same firms with extremely high delivery periods are being placed new orders,” the documents reveal. The documents stated that the production of wheelsets by Railway Wheel Factory is 21.96 per cent less than the proportionate target and 64.4 per cent less than the target by Rail Wheel Plant, Bela.
Similarly, the production of locomotives during this financial year till July is about 28 per cent less than the target, as shown in the document. It said 40 locomotive failures have been detected within 100 days till June and called for punitive action in such cases.
(with inputs from PTI)