Titagarh Wagons Limited (TWL) was looking at increasing its wagon out-run this fiscal togther with designing and manufacturing special units for the defence ministry at its Uttarpara facility.

TWL was targeting to increase wagon manufacturing by nearly 44 per cent this year to 5000 wagons. It had acquired around 9.05 acres that originally belonged to Titagarh Paper Mills lying with the Calcutta High Court, contiguous to its wagon manufacturing facility at Titagarh for Rs 11 crore for expanding the current wagon manufacturing facility.

The company will start manufacturing stainless steel wagons from the facility from the third quarter of this year, said Umesh Chowdhury, vice-chairman and managing director of TWL. Currently, it was mainly manufacturing conventional wagons.

Stainless steel wagons will cost 40 per cent more than the conventional ones, but will have a higher carrying capacity at the same time.

The pay-back period was calculated to be less than two years. Indian Railways will shift to stainless steel wagons in the coming years that will constitute nearly 60 per cent of its net wagon fleet.

TWL will procure the stainless steel free of cost from Railways. It was investing Rs 25 crore for expanding capacity of its 35-acre Uttarpara facility.

The facility originally belonged to Hyderabad Industries Ltd (HIL).

TWL had acquired the heavy engineering division of HIL in 2005, and currently manufactured hydraulic excavators among other mining equipment there apart from electrical multiple units (EMU) coaches. The company looked at scaling up the capacity of the EMU manufacturing facility to three rakes per month in phases.

This facility could also be utilised for manufacturing Field Shelters for the ministry of defence.

The company has bagged orders worth Rs32 crore with an option of 100 per cent increase in order size from the ministry after prototype was put to trials by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

TWL planned to design and manufacture special purpose wagons for defence from this facility as well. TWL's joint venture with FreightCar America for developing and manufacturing aluminium rail cars was in talks with the state government for 100 acres for the $30 million project.

The JV could start operation by 2010. The company's order book as of June 30, 2008, was a little over Rs1000 crore.

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