JSPL supplies 35,000 tonnes rails to Indian Railways till Oct

Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) supplied 35,000 tonnes of rails to the Indian Railways during July to October, a company official said Wednesday.

In July, the company had bagged 20 per cent of Rs 2,500-crore global rail tender floated by the railways, becoming the first private player to supply rails to the national transporter.

The order is to supply around 1 lakh tonnes of rails over a period of one year.

"As on October 31, 2018, we have supplied 35,000 tonnes or 35 per cent of the order after RDSO (Research Design and Standards Organisation) approval. It's only three months and we have supplied more than one-third of the order," N A Ansari, CEO, JSPL Steel Business, said.

The railways had invited the global tender for procuring around 4.87 lakh tonnes of rails to meet the supply shortfall from state-run SAIL.

In the tender invited earlier this year, seven foreign steel companies and JSPL from India had submitted bids.

Till now, the national transporter was procuring rails from government-owned SAIL.

JSPL was the only Indian steel maker in the fray, and was expected to get an assured order of 20 per cent under the 'Make in India' clause.

JSPL is the only private company that produces rails in India. It was already supplying rails to various countries such as Iran and Bangladesh.

The company operates the country's most advanced one million tonnes per annum (MTPA) rail mill at its 3.6 MTPA integrated steel plant in Raigarh, Chhattisgarh. It can manufacture single piece rails of up to 121 metre.

SAIL produces rails at its Bhilai Steel Plant in Chhattisgarh.

The railways had decided on an extra global tender after anticipating that SAIL would not be able to supply the 7,17,000 tonnes required for 2017-18 and 2018-19, as estimated at that time.

The Indian Railways is looking at 4,000 km of track renewal in each of the next two financial years, 2018-19 and 2019-20. Its estimated cost for 2018-19 is a little above Rs 10,000 crore.