Industries and IT Minister K. T. Rama Rao has urged the Centre to keep its promise of establishing a rail coach factory in Telangana.
Laying the foundation for a ₹1,000-crore rail coach factory of Medha Group near Hyderabad, Mr.Rao said at the time of bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, the Centre had said that a rail coach unit would be set up at Kazipet in the public sector.
It was six years since Telangana formation and the promise was yet to be kept, he said, adding that on completion the Medha Group’s facility would be the largest such in the private sector in the country.
Ministers Harish Rao and Sabitha Indra Reddy, people’s representatives and Medha Group managing director Y. Kasyap Reddy participated in the ground-breaking ceremony of the project that was expected create 2,200 direct and indirect employment opportunities, a release said.
Medha’s facility, at Kondakal village, Shankarpally, in the neighbouring Rangareddy district, would be equipped to manufacture coaches, locomotives, intercity trainsets, metro trains and monorail. It would have a capacity to manufacture 500 coaches of various types and 50 locomotives per year.
Hailing the decision of the Medha Group, Mr. Rama Rao said the first assembly line was expected to be completed in about 15 months, while it would take 4-5 years for the entire project to be completed. It was coming on about 100 acres spread across Kondakal and Veimula villages.
The project was expected to create an ecosystem for rail coach manufacturing in Telangana, he said, adding that the State had manufacturing units for buses, tractors, parts of aircraft and helicopters. Describing the rail coach factory as an important step towards a self-reliant India, he said Medha was also in talks with a European firm for a partnership that would open doors to export of the coaches.
Medha Servo Drives is the flagship of the group with focus on design and manufacturing of various high-tech electronics products for application on locomotives, trainsets, coaches, railway stations and yards. It is the largest propulsion equipment supplier to Indian Railways. According to the release, the group had a consolidated turnover of around ₹2,100 crore.
