'Railways need more than 4,500 coaches each yr'

The government today said that more than 4,500 coaches are needed by the Railways annually to ensure smooth passenger services but the supply is much below demand.

Annual requirement of air conditioned coaches has been assessed at 660 and other coaches at 3878 by Working Group on Railway Programmes, but the production units are not able to meet the demand, Minister of State for Railways E Ahamed said in the Rajya Sabha.

Shortage of coaches is also coming in the way of railways from introducing new trains and replacing the worn out coaches with the new ones.

However, Ahamed said new manufacturing units are being set up to meet the requirement. They include setting up of two new rail coach factories at Rae Bareli in UP and Palakkad in Kerala.

In addition, he said, a new coach factory would be set up Kanchrapara in West Bengal, as mentioned in the Railway Budget this year.

To a separate question, he said Railways is considering introducing Internet facility in selected trains. A trial run was conducted in Mumbai-Ahmedabad Shatabdi Express earlier this year.