Supplying rails to Railways like a dream come true: Naveen Jindal

Supplying rails to Indian Railways is like a "dream come true", Naveen Jindal, the Chairman of Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) which became the first private company to supply rails to the railways, said.

Last week, JSPL bagged 20 per cent of Rs 2,500 crore global tender by Indian Railways to supply long rails.

"It was a very emotional and proud moment. It was like a dream come true. A dream which we had seen some 20 years back. I had always dreamt of supplying rails to our national transporter," Jindal told PTI in an interview.

JSPL had set up a rail mill at its Raigarh plant in 2003 to become the second player after SAIL to produce rails in India.

"Meanwhile, we kept on getting long rail orders from industry and were exporting to countries like Iran, Bangladesh and a few others. In India, we supplied for dedicated freight corridor. But our main aim was to supply to the Indian Railways. Domestic rail segment is something which we were trying for 15 years," he said.

Until now, under a Memorandum of Understanding, SAIL was exclusively supplying rails to the Railways from its Bhilai Steel Plant in Chhattisgarh.

JSPL operates a 1 million tonne per annum (MTPA) rail mill at its 3.6 MTPA steel plant at Raigarh, Chhattisgarh.

When asked if he sees the Railways' order as an end to the SAIL's monopoly in rail segment in India, Jindal said, "SAIL can supply only up to a limit.

"Railways was buying from SAIL all that it could produce. ... suppose, if Railways has a requirement of 15 lakh tonne (LT) and SAIL can make only 10 LT then you can see there is a shortage of 5 LT. To meet this shortage Railways floated a global tender."