Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train Project Gets Make In India Touch: Railways Pitches To Build Coaches Indigenously

The bullet train project connecting Mumbai to Ahmedabad is one of the most ambitious projects of the country. Raising its ambitions a notch high, Indian Railways is planning to manufacture bullet trains in India giving the project a “Make in India” touch, reported Hindustan Times.

Initially the bullet trains which are known as Shinkansen in Japan will be imported from Japan but Indian railways wants to manufacture them in India at a later stage. Railways is willing to offer one of its factories in India to a Japanese company for manufacturing of the coaches, officials of the Railways told the daily.

In September, a presentation was given by the Indian railways to a working group - comprising of representatives from India and Japan monitoring the implementation of the project. In the presentation, modern coach factory (MCF) in Raebareli, Uttar Pradesh was projected as a potential bullet train coach manufacturing site by the railways.

“MCF has robotic production lines and can be ideal for bullet train coaches. We will have to transfer the technology from one of the companies (manufacturing such coaches in Japan),” official told.

The expected local manufacturing cost of the bullet train coaches has not been worked out yet.

“Modern Coach Factory has been set up for producing state-of-the-art coaches for operational speeds of 160 -200 kmph with an annual capacity of 1,000 coaches. Production capacity is being further enhanced to 2,000-plus coaches per year in next 1 to 2 years,” said an MCF official.

“MCF is interested in manufacturing indigenously self-propelled medium/high speed coaches at the rate of 500 coaches in the next two years or so for Metro MEMU (mainline electric multiple unit) and EMU train sets. It can also produce bullet train coaches,” official said.

According to a National High Speed Rail corporation (NHRC) official, NHRC, in the first phase of the bullet train corridor, will purchase 18 Shinkansen train sets from Japan which would cost around Rs 7,000 crore.

In the second phase parts of the train will be imported and assembled in India. It is in the third phase that Indian railways want to manufacture them locally in its facility.

“This will not only generate employment but also give a push to ‘Make in India,” said another railway official told.