ICF eyes Metro train market

Country's leading railway coach manufacturers Integral Coach Factory (ICF) here is eyeing the growing Metro train market in India and is in touch with the Union Urban Development Ministry and states.

ICF General Manager S Mani said the coach manufacturer was currently making coaches for the Kolkata Metro and that they wanted to cater to others also after that.

"We have order for 24 trains for Kolkata Metro and want to deliver the first set by March 2019. We want to show that we have done it and want to strongly get into the Metro trainmarket. We are in touch with the Urban Development Ministry and states," he said.

Many Indian states including Uttar Pradesh are mulling new Metro train routes even as people from Tier II cities like Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu have been seeking Metro service.

Addressing a press meet organised to highlight ICF's performance for the year 2016-17, Mani, however, did not quantify the size of the domestic Metro train market.

LC Trivedi, Chief Mechanical Engineer, ICF, said while the cost of a single metro coach globally was about Rs 10-11 crore, ICF was trying to cut it by 40 per cent.

The focus was on making the coaches indigenous by using locally procured material for manufacture, he said.

Mani said ICF was also focussing on high speed train, called Train 18 which could clock 160 kph, and is likely to be rolled out next March.

Further, ICF had export orders for Sri Lanka for 13 trains and the first train was expected to be handed over by the end of this financial year, he said, adding, more orders were expected from the island nation as well as from Bangladesh.

Detailing ICF's performance for the year 2016-17, he said the annual 'outturn',i.e. number of coaches manufactured, had increased to 2,277 from 2,005 the previous year, registering a 14 per cent growth.The target was 2,400 coaches in the coming years, he said.

The city-based plant was switching over to making modern LHB German design coaches, replacing the conventional "ICF Coaches", especially after the recent Kanpur train accident, he said.

Trivedi said nearly Rs 1,000 crore of capital infusion has been made into ICF in the past three years on modernisation, which had helped

increase output.