Ramkrishna Forgings eyes rail push with components for bullet train

Company also hopeful of Europe rail market penetration

Kolkata-headquartered Ramkrishna Forgings, which is on its way to becoming the only private sector manufacturer of the crucial railway forged wheels, is eyeing a major push in the railway segment and aiming to raise the company’s rail revenue share to 20 per cent by 2030, Executive Director Chaitanya Jalan told Business Standard.

 

Besides its forged wheels facility coming up in Chennai in a joint venture with Titagarh Rail Systems, the company would focus on becoming a leader in the nascent high-speed rail, popularly known as bullet train, sector in India, for which it designs bogie undercarriages.

 

“When 2030 probably comes around, we anticipate our railway revenue on a consolidated basis to be anywhere around 20 per cent or up with the Indian Railways. Currently this is about 6 per cent,” said Jalan.

 

The Chennai facility will produce 220,000 forged wheels per year, of which the national transporter’s demand will be of around 80,000 wheels and the rest will be targeted for the export market.

 

Jalan expects 80 per cent capacity utilisation of the facility over the next five years, which will contribute nearly ₹2,000 crore to the company’s revenue.

 

“Today, we have an in-house team capable of designing and validating the complete undercarriage, LHB bogies, and Vande Bharat bogies for Indian Railways. We are further working on providing solutions for the complete undercarriage for high speed trains for the global platform. So that is the trajectory and our focus is to completely dominate this space,” said Jalan.

 

The company, which is primarily a supplier of forged components, is also recalibrating its export strategy with a higher focus on European auto and rail, said Jalan, citing weak demand from America amid the tariff woes.

 

Ramkrishna Forgings reported consolidated revenue of ₹1,010 crore in the first quarter of the current financial year (Q1FY26), a 6 per cent growth over the previous year.

 

In the first quarter, the company had received new orders worth ₹660 crore, of which export orders were worth ₹502 crore and domestic orders worth ₹158 crore. The export orders were primarily in the commercial and passenger vehicle segments in Europe and America.

 

The company had faced pressure in the recent months owing to the volatile tariff situation between the US and India, but the concern regarding US is flattening demand in that economy rather than tariffs, Jalan said.

 

“Europe is really doing well for us. There is big talk about a free trade agreement, and with this coming into the picture, Europe will be a very big market for us. Today, it is almost 50 per cent of our North American revenue, and we are anticipating that in another year or two, it will grow bigger than North America,” said Jalan.

 

The company aims to make a push in the European railway market too, where it sees a sizable opportunity.

 

“Slowly and steadily, now we are also penetrating into the passenger car and the railway segment in Europe in a big way. This is adding further diversification to the overall revenue mix, and also large opportunities for us to grow,” he said.