Naveen Jindal promoted Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) will commission a 1.2 million tone per annum (mtpa) rail and heavy structure modern mill at Angul in Odisha, at an estimated cost of ₹3,000 crore.
With the facility coming on stream, the steel maker — one of the largest private players in the country — will more than double its capacity in the segment to 2.2 mtpa.
Due diligence on equipment and technology is being carried out for the Angul factory.
The company said, it has developed speciality rails — like 1175 HT (heat treated), R350 HT, Asymmetric Rails, and 1080 HH (head hardened) rails at its existing rail mill facility in Raigarh, Chhattisgarh, which has a capacity of 1 mtpa.
These rails are an import substitution product, required for heavy axle loads of more than 25 tonnes.
These rails are primarily used by various metro rail corporations, high-speed corridors and the bullet train project.
Supplies in India
The Raigarh mill supplies rails to Indian Railways, dedicated freight corridor corporation (DFCC) and other critical projects of national importance, it said in a statement.
The company’s speciality rails are also used in projects of civil-military importance (in India) including in areas of remote connectivity such as the Udhampur — Srinagar — Baramulla Rail link project (USBRL) in Jammu & Kashmir and the Sivok-Rangpo Project in West Bengal.
“JSPL is augmenting further Rail manufacturing capacity to support the modernization of the Indian Rail network,” Bimlendra Jha, Managing Director, JSPL, said, as per a company statement.
Incidentally, the company recently won a contract to supply special-grade rails, to the tune of 19,110 tonnes, to the Indore and Bhopal Metro Projects in Madhya Pradesh. Out of 19,110 tonnes, JSPL will supply 16,545 tonnes of 1080 head hardened rails and 2565 tonnes of grade rails, respectively.
JSPL has supplied 1080 grade head hardened rails to Rail Vikas Nigam Limited for the construction of the Kolkata Metro Rail Project and Pune Metro too.
In the export market, JSPL has been supplying speciality rail blooms to France and queries for the head hardened offerings are coming in. It also exports rails to adjoining countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka while and to the African continent as well.