Wagon buying chugs along at slow pace: Target falls short by 40% in FY26

Amid ongoing issues in manufacturing of wheelsets for rail wagons, the Indian Railways is experiencing a continued shortage in wagon procurement from the private sector, falling 40 per cent short of its target in the first four months of FY26, according to officials in the know of 

the matter. 

While private companies are responsible for manufacturing the wagons, the wheelsets for them are supplied only by railways through its production units, including the Rail Wheel Factory (RWF) in Bengaluru. 

As of July, the Ministry of Railways has managed to procure around 6,703 wagons from the private and public sector undertakings, 5,300 short of its four-month target of 12,000 wagons. Accounting for both railway workshops and the domestic industry, the ministry is running 40 per cent short of its target so far, a senior official said. 

“In the past, production of wagons for the industry was almost hand-to-mouth due to a shortage in domestic supply of wheelsets and the fact that manufacturers could import wheels from China only for private wagons. Now that situation has normalised with imports being allowed and wheel supplies normalising, we will definitely try to make up the shortfall,” Indrajit Mookerjee, vice-chairman of  Kolkata-headquartered rolling stock manufacturer Texmaco Rail and Engineering told Business Standard.

 

However, this is despite a temporary provision approved earlier this year when the national transporter — in order to protect the industry from production slowdowns — had allowed axles to be imported from China. “Imports from China were sluggish for some time and that created an availability issue with regard to components, along with a domestic production slowdown too,” said Mookerjee. Queries sent to the rail ministry remained unanswered at  the time of the publishing of  the report. 

 

“The availability of wheelsets did pose challenges earlier this financial year, with dispatches in the first quarter limited to 1,628 wagons,” Prithish Chowdhary, deputy managing director at Titagarh Rail Systems told Business Standard. 

The company has also experienced supply chain normalisation since August and is ramping up production. 

“During the interim shortage, a limited number of wagons were produced with imported wheels, in line with the authorities’ approval. With domestic supplies now regularised, this provision is no longer required,” he added. 

 The geopolitical situation during the first quarter had hurt imports that were likely from China, and the government would not want to penalise manufacturers for lack of availability of imported wheels, according to industry executives. 

A senior official said the ministry has already extended delivery timelines in recent days for several tranches with multiple wagon manufacturers. These, under normal circumstances, would lead to penalties due to delayed deliveries. 

“There is ample rolling stock for freight transportation available with Indian Railways. In that context, the procurement delay has not affected operational performance of the railways in any way,” the official added. 

The rail ministry had floated a mega tender to acquire 90,000 wagons in 2022, which was sized down to around 78,000 wagons. After receiving feedback from industry to go for smaller tenders on a rolling basis rather than a large tender once in years, the ministry has awarded multiple small contracts for wagon manufacturing in the subsequent years. 

The ministry has a target of procuring 36,000 rail wagons in the current financial year (FY26) from the industry. 

Rly ticket booking only via Aadhaar for 15 mins upon opening from Oct

 

The Ministry of Railways on Monday announced that it has decided to keep general ticket reservations open only through Aadhaar-based authentication for 15 minutes upon opening of general reservations with effect from October 1.  The ministry is continuing its drive to make tickets accessible to the general public at scale. The ministry said that there would be no change in the timings of booking of general reserved tickets through computerised passenger reservation system counters of Indian Railways at present.