Toshiba to set up facility for railway systems in Hyderabad

Japanese major Toshiba Corporation will set up a production facility in Hyderabad for electrical equipment used in railway systems.

Power conversion systems and train control systems that provide overall operation management are to be manufactured at the facility, which will be built by wholly owned subsidiary Toshiba Transmission & Distribution Systems (India) Pvt Ltd. TTDI will also establish a new, dedicated railway systems division to promote the business.

Production will start in April 2017 and the plant will have over 100 employees by 2020. The unit will cater to the growing Indian market besides markets in the Middle East and Africa, a Toshiba release on Thursday said.

The project, sources in Toshiba said, is for meeting specific requirements of railways and come up in TTDI’s Hyderabad campus where only one-third of the 155 acres available are under use at present.

The investment will be around Rs.100 crore and the company, with regard to prospective customers, is betting big on Dedicated Freight Corridor projects in India. On the project status, the sources said the work is on the drawing board and apace.

Locating production in India will help understand and meet local market requirements, improve parts supply and maintenance capabilities besides gaining cost benefits, the release said.

TTDI chairman and managing director Katsutoshi Toda said India is a growing market committed to robust, long-term investment, especially in electricity and transportation infrastructure. Toshiba considers India as one of the important markets with significant growth potential. In February, Mr. Toda had announced that TTDI would invest Rs. 200 crore on its Hyderabad factory by 2017 to develop the facility as a global manufacturing hub. That was in addition to Rs. 200 crore invested to enhance the production capacity for transformers and manufacture new technology switchgears as part of the firm’s strategy to garner 20 per cent market share in the Indian T&D market.

Power conversion and train control systems that provide overall operation management are to be manufactured in the city