With a massive outlay of 2.40 lakh crore, the Indian Railways has embarked on an ambitious project of increasing railway tracks, electrification and station facilities. Rashtriya Ispat Nigam (RINL) is planning to produce 55,000 wheels during the current financial year, PTI reported.
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RIL, a state-owned company from Visakhapatnam, has started a plant that will manufacture forged wheels in Uttar Pradesh’s Lalganj, CMD Atul Bhatt said. The plant, which is expected to start operations in the next couple of years, is estimated to cost around Rs 2,000-3,000 billion.
In the last financial year, the company supplied over 2,465 loco wheels and 2,639 LHB wheels to the railways. It also received a preliminary acceptance certificate for its plant. He said that the production of wheels would be ramped up to 55, 000 during the current fiscal.
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RIL started supplying steel to the Indian Railways in December 2021 with a consignment of 52 wheels from its manufacturing unit at Uttar Prdesh’s Rae Bareli.
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The move will reduce India’s dependence on imported steel and help Indian Railways to utilise Made in India railway parts of better quality than the imported ones, Bhatt said.
The Rae Bareli plant is one of a kind and equipped with state-of-the-art technology and the highest level of sophistication and automation. The forged wheels can meet the requirement of high-speed trains that can run at a speed of 200 km per hour.
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The company’s capacity could be doubled to 2 lakh wheels annually with the addition of several facilities, he said. He also noted that the demand for wheels in the international markets would be met through the plant in the future.
RINL is a government-owned special steel producer that produces various types of products, such as wire rod coils and billets. It is one of the first shore-based integrated steel plants in the country.
