Jupiter Wagons switching tracks: To expand rail supply chain beyond wagons

Amid a surge in railway infrastructure spending, Jupiter Wagons, a rail wagon and component manufacturer, is seeking to extend its influence in the railway supply chain beyond its core business, according to the company’s managing director, Vivek Lohia.

“We are focused on diversifying and are having discussions on this. Down the line, you will hear some announcements from us,” Lohia said in an interview with Business Standard.
 

The company aims to capture the rolling stock replacement market, which, it believes, will supersede the original equipment manufacturing market in the future, both in terms of capacity expansion and technology upgrading.

“In the next month or two, we will also be looking at exports. Next year, our brake disc business will be focused 50 per cent on the Indian market and the rest on exports. Going forward, we are also looking at wheel manufacturing. Right now, we are importing wheels from China. We will announce our plans for forged wheels for both freight and passenger business soon,” Lohia said.

The company is looking to increase its brake disc business to Rs 1,000 crore in the next three to four years.

The increased infrastructure appetite in India has helped the company register a 170 per cent growth in its profit after tax to Rs 228 crore in the first three quarters of the financial year.

Jupiter Wagons is also looking to capitalise on its rolling stock portfolio independent of Indian Railways, where it is the largest supplier of private wagons. Close to 30-35 per cent of all wagons supplied by the industry are for the private industry, according to Lohia.

The Ministry of Railways, last year, imposed a two-year moratorium on its private wagon scheme amid concerns that the industry barely had enough capacity to fulfil orders by the railways.

Lohia said that the challenge was never capacity expansion, but that the order flow by railways was uneven, making manufacturers hesitant to expand capacity, as a future dry-up of orders would render the capacity expansion redundant.

This has been streamlined with a steady flow of orders. In the October-December quarter, Jupiter Wagons was one of the winning bidders in a railway wagon tender, winning the contract to supply 4,000 wagons to the national transporter.

Now, the company is looking to expand its wagon capacity by 25 per cent to 1,000 wagons a month.

Lohia added that there are discussions going on with numerous other automobile manufacturers looking to shift their supply chains to railways under the automobile freight train operator scheme.

The company has recently secured an order from Maruti Suzuki India for the supply of four rakes of double-decker sport utility vehicle carrier wagons worth Rs 100 crore.

Over the past six financial years, the railways’ capital expenditure utilisation for the acquisition of rolling stock has doubled to Rs 41,000 crore (2024-25 Budget Estimates).

Jupiter Wagons had earlier announced its plans to introduce a commercial electric vehicle (EV) targeting the small payload market.

The company’s first EV, Lohia said, is likely to be out in the market by April, as it is in the advanced stages of Automotive Research Association of India certifications. "Right now, our facility in Indore will have an aim of making 5000 EVs annually, and we can achieve these volumes within the next one-two years. We already have expansion plans ready for it."

The EVs are primarily aimed at fleet operators in cities operating in a range of 200 kilometres.