India's largest private rail coach factory was inaugurated at Kondakal village in Rangareddy district near Hyderabad on Thursday.
Chief Minister K. Chandrsekhar Rao inaugurated the facility built by Medha Servo Drives Private Limited, a Telangana company which designs and manufactures complex electrical and electronic Railway products.
The Chief Minister said Telangana was proud that a home grown company will be building rail coaches in the state. He expressed happiness over the company bagging Mono rail order from Mumbai.
As part of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act 2014, Telangana was promised a Rail Coach Factory within six months of its formation. However, despite repeated appeals by the state government, this did not become a reality.
In 2017, Medha Group had signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (TSIIC) to establish a private rail coach factory.
It was on August 13, 2020 that Industries Minister K.T. Rama Rao had laid the foundation stone for the factory.
It was then announced that with an investment of Rs 1,000 crore, the private rail coach factory will have a production capacity of 500 coaches and 50 locomotives per year.
Spread over 100 acres, the factory will develop all types of railway rolling stock including coaches, train sets, locomotives, Metro trains and Monorails.
Medha Managing Director Kasyap Reddy told the inaugural ceremony that about Rs 400 crore have been invested in the first phase. The proposed investment for the project is Rs 805 crore.
He said 558 people have already been employed and an additional 500 people have benefited indirectly. An additional employment of around 1,000 people will be made in the near future.
He announced that by the end of this year, total coach manufacturing for Monorail project will happen at the facility. "With second and third phases of the project, we plan to manufacture Railway products not just for India but the world," he said.
Medha claims to be the only Indian company that has in-house R&D facilities. It is also currently manufacturing bogies for the Indian Railways and will soon commence manufacturing of the complete Mumbai Monorail train sets.
Medha also owns various subsidiary companies including in Spain, Italy, USA, Brazil and Poland for serving Railway customers across the world.
Medha Servo Drives has also signed a joint venture (JV) agreement with Swiss railway rolling stock manufacturer Stadler Rail for a new rail coach manufacturing factory in Telangana.
Stadler, headquartered in Bussnang, Switzerland, has been building rail vehicles for over 80 years. It has been manufacturing railway rolling stock and has a dominant market share across the global railway market.
The Joint Venture will use the proposed Telangana Unit to cater to its tenders from the Indian market and exports from customers across the Asia Pacific region
Medha was established in 1984 and has been supplying various products to Railways since 1990. It is the largest propulsion equipment (Electronics) supplier to Indian Railways.
It is also the largest traction motor manufacturer for Railways and also largest Indian company supplying advanced signaling and safety systems
The company has an annual turnover of Rs 2,500 crore and has employed about 5,000 people.
Kasyap Reddy said Medha was also bringing innovative technologies to India in areas like solar inverters, propulsion system for battery electric vehicles and canal automation systems. It also made foray into defence manufacturing by signing a MoU to develop large propulsion motors for the Indian Navy.
TSIIC has also allotted 25 acres of land at E-City to Medha for the manufacture of Solar PV Inverters.
Medha will be investing Rs 80 crore in two phases and will be creating employment of 210 people across both phases.