Hopes rise on Rae Bareli's rail coach factory

United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Chairperson and Congress President Sonia Gandhi today announced that a rail coach factory would be set up in Rae Bareli after the state government provided land for the purpose.

"The Union Cabinet has approved the project of the rail coach factory at Rae Bareli and I have written letter to the UP chief minister to provide land," Gandhi said after inaugurating the fifth 210 Mw unit of the Feroze Gandhi Unchaar Thermal Power station here.

Gandhi said the rail coach factory would be set up with an investment of Rs 1,000 crore and the unit will manufacture 1,500 rail coaches of different varieties annually.

Talking about the developmental projects being launched in her Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency, Gandhi said the central government had notified the Lucknow-Rae Bareli-Allahabad road as a national highway while all efforts were being made to revive the ailing Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) unit here.

"It was Indira Gandhi's dream to see Rae Bareli emerge as an industrial town," she said.

Indira Gandhi had laid the foundation stone of the Unchaar power station 25 years ago and now it has turned into a super thermal power station, generating 1,050 Mw.