Made in India metro coaches on cards

State government to sign MOUs for constructing coaches in Maharashtra itself.

Ahead of the ‘Make In India Week’ starting Saturday, Maharashtra is set to become the third state in India to have ‘Made in India’ coaches for its upcoming Metro corridors in cities like Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur. The state government will sign Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) with international rolling stock manufacturers like Hitachi, Bombardier and Alstom for constructing metro coaches in the state itself.

The MOUs will be signed during the six-day long programme the Central government has named ‘Make In India’ which will be conducted at MMRDA Grounds in Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC). “The plan is to give land at a lower cost to these international rolling stock manufactures in the state by which the state will be benefited with Made in India metro coaches. Also, at the same time manufacturers will be benefitted by getting land at cheaper rates to set up their plant and in return they can also manufacture rolling stocks in Maharashtra and export to various Indian states and to foreign countries,” said an official from the chief minister’s office (CMO).

Alstom, a French multinational company involved in the business of manufacturing rolling stock, is already constructing coaches for Chennai and Kochi in Kerala. “The state government of both the states had mutually signed an agreement with Alstom to manufacture coaches for both Chennai and Kochi and Alstom. Alstom already has one manufacturing plant in business hub ‘Sricity’ in Andhra Pradesh. So, Alstom could be interested in having plants in more places,” said a state government official.

The state plans to construct a network of 118-km Metro corridors in the state, which will connect the city’s western suburbs and central suburbs with South Mumbai. The Metro network will also cover the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). The BJP-led government has also revived the plans of having metro corridors in Pune and Nagpur being the hometown of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.

Prior to this, for the Versova-Abdheri-Ghatkopar (VAG) Metro-1 corridor had attracted six international rolling stock manufacturers, namely Siemens, Bombardier, Alstom, Rotem-Hyundai, Chunyun, Nippon Sharyo and CSR Nanjing Puzhen — out of which CSR Nanjing Puzhen, a Chinese manufacturer, was given the contract to supply rolling stock.