In order to overcome the massive shortage of passenger coaches, the Railways have decided to speed up steps for setting up three new coach factories.
The new coach factories would be set up at Rae Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh, Kancharapara in West Bengal and Palakkad in Kerala as announced by Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee in the Railway Budget 2010-11.
Currently, there is a shortage of about 1,000 coaches in a year, said a senior Railway Ministry official.
While there is a demand of 4,500 coaches in a year, about 3,000 coaches are being manufactured at two coach factories at Chennai and Kapurthala.
"We procure about 500 coaches from outside also. But there is a huge gap between the supply and requirement of coaches," said the official, adding "the gap would only widen with more and more new trains being announced every year."
However, railways hope that with the commissioning of these new coach factories, the shortage in coaches would ease to a great extent.
In addition, the Railway Minister announced that the Integral Coach Factory at Chennai would be further modernised and expanded by installing a second unit so as to equip it to manufacture a larger number of technologically upgraded coaches from its present level of about 1,500 coaches per year.
Besides, railways would also set up a diesel multiple unit (DMU) factory in joint venture/Public Private Partnership mode at Sankrail.
The Railway Minister has said that the progress on the setting up of the coach factory at Rae Bareilly would pick up during the year and a range of activities would be initiated. She also said the establishment of coach factories at Kancharapara and Palakkad is in the process.
There was a request from the Government of West Bengal to set up a coach factory in Singur.
Mamata said the Railways would be willing to do so, provided the state government handed over the requisite land to the Ministry of Railways after returning 400 acres of land to the unwilling farmers.
She also mentioned of the need to develop special types of coaches for the physically challenged and senior citizens.
With the upsurge in the economy, there has been an unprecedented growth of passenger traffic during the last five years resulting in increased requirement of passenger coaches.
In order to overcome the shortage of coaches, she said "we have to plan years in advance and therefore, the Railways are taking steps to set up new coach factories."
