The Indian Railways will procure wagons after a gap of more than two years. It has floated a tender for a total of 11,728 wagons of six types, including the standard ones for coal and iron ore.
Wagon manufacturers had received an order for 15,715 wagons from the Railways in 2011-12. The present bids are to be submitted by November 25.
Interestingly, the current tender bidding is to be in the electronic format, a first time for procurement of wagons by the railways, industry sources said. The delay in procurement marks the beginning of a “cyclical” affair and is against the annual exercise traditionally practices by the Railways.
Industry sources said though the number of wagons to be procured is lower compared with the pervious order, there is demand for new types of wagons for carrying cement bags, with specific loading/unloading features.
Though the Railways insisted on use of robotics and automation for the new kind of wagons, it was not able to follow-up with enough orders. “This has caused serious underutilisation of capacity for the wagon makers”, said a top official of a large listed wagon unit.
“In the previous order cycle, inordinate delays in finalising designs by RDSO had created problems for the manufacturers,” said the CEO of another listed wagon entity.