Sri Lanka, the island country has been a longtime ally of India. The governments in New Delhi, irrespective of their political ideology, have helped Sri Lanka in its developmental needs. In a further boost to Indo-Sri Lankan ties, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena flagged Pulathisi Express, a train ‘Made in India’. The train, which has been induced under an Indian Line of Credit (Soft loan) was manufactured at Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai.
Wheels of #India – SL partnership moving swiftly ahead: A new train gets added to the #lka Railway fleet,
HE President @MaithripalaS, Transport Minister Hon. Arjuna Ranathunga and HE Taranjit Singh Sandhu flagged off a new 🚆 to Polonnaruwa frm #Colombo Fort Railway station. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/LjfZGXcw81— India in Sri Lanka (@IndiainSL) September 11, 2019
ICF has bagged the contract to manufacture another six DEMU rakes consisting of 78 coaches in five variants. The trains are manufactured as per the customized requirement of Sri Lanka. Majority of Sri Lanka’s railway lines are along with the coastal areas and therefore corrosion was the prime concern of the Sri Lankan government.
“To prevent this, the car body along with all interior fittings have been made of authentic stainless steel and special paint has been used on the coaches and under-frame to prevent corrosion,” the ICF official said.
“The body of these coaches are painted with special high glass anti-graffiti paint that will be appealing and long-lasting,” he added.
Over the last few years, India has become a major manufacturing hub of train coaches for domestic and international companies.
India is all set to enter in the $200 billion global markets for coaches and wagons with the ultra-modern Train 18 which was manufactured at ICF.
The manufacturing of semi high-speed train at less than half of global prices is the latest example of India’s valour in rail coach manufacturing.
Many countries like Peru, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and some Middle Eastern nations have shown interest in Train 18 and India is looking to export them. The interest of the countries is due to the cheap price and state of the art technology in Train 18 coaches.
The train sets with facilities of Train 18 are priced around 250 crore rupees while the cost of Train 18 is just 100 crore rupees and as such it is a great opportunity for India to export the trains.
Earlier, Alstom SA, a French multinational operating in rail transport exported 22 metro train sets for Sydney metro. The six-car train sets were fully designed and manufactured in India at the company’s plant in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh
Modern Coach Factory (MCF), Raebareli will also export customized 1st AC, 2nd AC and other coaches in the global market. This is the first time in India that MCF will export 90 coaches from Indian Railways’ manufacturing facility at Raebareli to the African nation, Mozambique.
The world has surely taken notice of the conducive investment environment in India. World’s biggest tech giants and entrepreneurs have already made their expansion plans in India.
Investors around the world have shown immense confidence in India which will help meet the needs of the Indian economy and hence, employment generation in India will see the boost. The onus of success largely goes to initiatives like the Make in India, Digital India and Skill India by the NDA government.
