Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal will lay the foundation stone of the proposed Rail Coach Factory at Latur on Saturday. The decision to set up the factory was taken in January and it is expected to cost ₹500 crore.
An Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the project was signed in February during the Magnetic Maharashtra Summit between the ministry and the state government.
The factory is being built on 153 hectares. The State has offered several concessions for the project. The Rail Coach Factory will manufacture EMU coaches as well as Metro coaches.
During the Summit Mr. Goyal had said that the eventual plan was to create a large industrial complex of around 2,000 acres and turn Latur into a manufacturing hub for Metro coaches. The coach factory has been planned to meet the demand for Metro coaches, especially in Maharashtra.
The project, which is expected to provide employment to 30,000 people in the region, will in the first phase manufacture 250 coaches annually, increasing it to 400 in Phase 2.