Titagarh Rail Systems expects to see the share of passenger rail contribution to its overall business rise to around 60-65 per cent amid a growing demand for Metro and Vande Bharat coaches.
Prithish Chowdhary, who has been elevated to the role of deputy-managing director of the company effective May 15, on Wednesday said the company plans to step up the metro coach production capability to around 20-25 coaches per month from its existing facility at Uttarpara by the end of the year.
“We are installing new robotic machines and new lines and optimising our production processes at Uttarpara so that in the same factory we can increase the capacity to 72 metro and Vande Bharat coaches over the next two and a half years,” Chowdhary said.“
Thus far the capacity at that plant was under-utilised. By the end of the calendar year, we should be making 20-25 coaches a month. Orders for Surat, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru metro, and Vande Bharat will now start execution,” he said.
The company registered a highest-ever monthly production of 1089 wagons in March and Chowdhary said that with steady demand for wagons, the company expects the passenger rail business to be its next growth vertical.
“We have already hit the milestone of 1,000 wagons per month first in January and again in March. On that front, we are not looking to expand capacity much more. This run rate is a good capacity to have. With this scale, we can leverage and improve our margins.”
“For us, passenger business will be the next lever of growth. In the next 5 years, we expect about 60-65 per cent of our revenue coming from this vertical. Today it is at less than 10 per cent,” Chowdhary said.
He said the company has signed an agreement with ABB that will enable it to have driverless propulsion systems for metro rail. “We have signed an agreement with ABB that will make us the only Indian company to have our own TCMS technology (driverless metro propulsion system).
Progress on this is going well,” Chowdhary said.The company has also formed a joint venture with Ramkrishna Forgings to supply around 80,000 wheel sets per annum to the Indian Railways for a period of 20 years. A factory at Chennai is being set up at a project cost of around ₹1800-2000 crore.
“The factory will have a total capacity of making 2.28 lakh wheels per annum. Out of which 80,000 is the guaranteed annual offtake by railways. So, there will be around 60 per cent free capacity to sell to other railway manufacturers and also for use internally. Contractual delivery for this starts from May 2026 and the factory would be up and running much before,” Chowdhary said.