Make-in-India: Railways Float Tender To Manufacture Forged Wheels For High Speed Trains

Aiming to reduce the dependence on wheel import, Indian Railways has floated a tender worth Rs 1,000 crore, inviting interested players to set up a factory in the country to manufacture forged wheels for semi-high speed and high-speed trains.

As an assured offtake, the Railways would procure nearly 80,000 forged train wheels at the cost of Rs 600 crore per year from the proposed facility, said Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw here on Friday (9 September).

In line with make-in-India initiative, the factory would be allowed to export the forged wheels to Europe and other countries after supplying the products to the Railways. The tender is open to Indian players only.

Until now, Indian Railways was mostly dependent on Europe to import forged wheels for its requirement.

Since the European market is badly affected by the Ukraine war, India can prepare itself to export the wheels manufactured in the country.

We have invited the industry to set up a facility to produce these wheels, primarily for semi-high speed trains (Vande Bharat) and high-speed trains (bullet train), said Vaishnaw.

While the estimated cost of setting up a production unit is about Rs 1,000 crore, the volume of business is expected to be in tune of Rs 12,000 crore of the company.

"Based on our new projects like 400 Vande Bharat trains, we have a requirement of 200,000 forged wheels. Out of this, Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL) has a capacity of 80,000 wheels. We plan to bridge the gap through this tender," Railway Minister said.

The issue came to fore after the national transporter recently placed an order for 39,000 semi-forged wheels with a Chinese company, citing disrupted European supply chains on account of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Vaishnaw said the ministry had tried hard to ensure supply from Europe but had to end up awarding the contract to a Chinese firm.

The ministry also suffered a setback caused by disruption at the RINL plant in Raebareli. "As of now, RINL has sorted out a lot of its issues at the plant," Vaishnaw said.

He added that a condition in the forged-wheels tender is that the bidder must also be able to export these wheels, adding that potential markets such as Europe are currently being identified.

Forged wheels are specially-designed wheels, built at high-pressure for trains running at higher speeds than regular Indian Railways trains.

The Minister said there is no established forged wheels player in India currently, hence the technical qualifications have been set in a way that only companies with extensive experience in manufacturing forged metals can qualify.

Vaishnaw also announced that the next step is for the ministry to develop better railway track infrastructure conducive for high-speed and semi-high-speed trains, and a tender for the same will be floated soon.

Also Read: Railways To Eliminate 20,000 Level Crossings By 2047