In a major push for ‘Make in India’, the Ministry of Railways has drawn up a road map to start domestic production of its two major import items – High Speed Wheels and High Strength Rail Tracks.
Speaking to presspersons, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav on Friday said that the Railways has floated a tender for manufacturing high speed wheels in India and also started exporting them to meet the domestic demand, and high power wheels. There will be a common tender for the manufacture and export of the track. Out in a month’s time.
“We did an extensive exercise to study what we import and high speed wheels and high power rails are the two major items. We are working towards not only meeting the domestic demand, but also towards becoming exporters from importers,” said Mr. Vaishnav.
As per the tender issued, a manufacturing plant with a capacity to produce at least 80,000 such wheels will be set up within 18 months. These will be forged wheels which are used for high speed trains like Vande Bharat as well as LHB coaches.
Railways will assure the purchase of 80,000 wheels at an estimated cost of around ₹600 crore per year for 20 years.
The Minister said that this is the first time that the Railways has floated a tender for inviting private players to build wheel plants and make wheels for high speed trains in India. There will also be a condition that the player will have to export the wheels to other markets, he added. The companies bidding for the tender should be an Indian manufacturer with good expertise in the metal industry.
The present requirement of Indian Railways is about two lakh wheels per year. About half of this will be met through Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited of Steel Authority of India Limited. Currently, the railways imports the bulk of its wheels from countries such as Ukraine, Germany and the Czech Republic.
More recently, it faced major delays in procurement due to the Russo-Ukraine War, and had to place a purchase order for 39,000 wheels from a Chinese manufacturer.