Decline in coach production at RCF Kapurthala

The Rail Coach Factory (RCF) here, one of the country's largest coach manufacturing units, is facing a crisis due to a shortage of supply of components from suppliers.
Theproduction has come down to 73 coaches compared to the previous standard of 120 coaches per month, RCF General Manager M K Gupta said here today.
He attributed the reasons for slow production mainly due to non-supply of components by the suppliers, implementation of the GST and railway board's instructions to manufacture more LHB coaches instead of general coaches, he said.
The German-designed Linke-Hofmann-Busch coaches are technologically advanced and much safer than the existing coaches.

The railway board has reduced the manufacturing target to 1,360 coaches from 1,626 this financial year as it plans to manufacture more LHB coaches.
The RCF General Manager said he would hold meetings with the supplierstomorrow at the RCF to ramp upthe supply of rail components.

He said the management has taken serious note of the short supply of components and started risk purchases from the open market on behalf of the suppliers.
Meanwhile, Rail Coach Factory Men's Union and RCF Employees Unionhave started an agitation due to the short supply of components which has adversely affected the production of the factory for the past four months.

Rail Coach Factory Men's Union President Rajbir Sharma, Zonal secretary Rajinder Singh and General Secretary Jaswant Singh Saini alleged that senior officersof the factory were responsible for the slow production due to frequent reshuffling in the planning department that resulted in delay in tendering of components.
They also questioned why the localsuppliers were supplying the components to Rail Coach Factory, Raebareli and Integral Coach Factory, Chennai.
The unions demanded the posting of regular General Manager as the railway board is still to fill the vacant post of GM for the past more than four months.
The railway board has given the additional charge to General Manager Raibareli.

Suppliers meanwhile alleged that a delay in the tendering system, imposition of GST, deletion of the list of genuine vendors from the directory list of suppliers and mismanagementare the main causesbehind slow production.