Four more Casnub bogies built by Autokast Limited, a ferrous foundry manufacturing unit in the public sector at Cherthala, for the Northern Railway were dispatched to Amritsar in Punjab by road on Saturday.
It was flagged off by P.P. Chitharanjan, MLA.
Autokast, which was accorded a Class ‘A’ Foundry status by the Lucknow-based Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) of the Union Ministry of Railways in 2019, had bagged a ‘development order’ in March 2020 for manufacturing five Casnub bogies for goods trains. The first bogie was delivered in August.
Officials said the four bogies were dispatched after the RDSO accorded its final clearance.
The remarkable turnaround of Autokast, which was once listed for privatisation, can be attributed to the previous Left Democratic Front government’s efforts to revive sick public sector undertakings in the State.
The government had injected money into Autokast, which helped it to modernise the unit.
By successfully delivering the initial order for Casnub bogies, Autokast’s status had been upgraded from development source to regular source. It has become eligible to participate in tenders of Railways.
K.S. Pradeep Kumar, Chairman, Autokast, Prasad Mathew, Managing Director, S. Radhakrishnan, board member, and others were present at the function.
