Escorts launches new Rail products

Escorts launches new Rail products

New Delhi: Engineering major Escorts Group’s rail division expects to see a four-fold rise in its annual revenues to ₹1,000 crore by 2020, riding on Indian Railways’ plan to substitute imports of components with locally manufactured products, in line with the Centre’s ‘Make in India’ mission.

Escorts Railway Products said it has launched several new products for the metro and Indian Railway segments.

“We have partnered with the best companies around the world to ‘Make In India’ the new products required for railway transformation as envisioned by the new Railway Minister,” Nikhil Nanda, the Managing Director of Escorts, said in a statement.

The products were lauched at three-day 11th IREE (International Railway Equipment Exhibition) Fair which started today, the statement said.

Escorts has presence in almost all the rolling stock segments of passenger coach, locomotive, wagons, EMUs and metro.

Engineering conglomerate Escorts on Thursday announced launch of an array of new products for Indian Railways and Metro rail projects aimed at reducing imports and ensuring safer travel.

Dipankar Ghosh, Chief Executive Officer, Escorts Railway Products (India) said in a statement “Escorts Railway Division is gearing up to the challenge of participating in the transformation of Indian Railways and Metro segment with a strategic mix of new product introduction through both in house innovation and global technology partnerships.”

The new products are automatic door for Metro and high speed train, LHB Alstom coach dampers, heavy duty locomotive dampers, rubber to metal bonded products, friction products like brake pads, and axle-mounted disc brake systems for LHB.

Escorts has been serving the railways market since 1962 and ERP manufactures brake systems, couplers, suspension systems and rubber and friction products, the statement said.

It is also present in the rolling stock segments of passenger coach, locomotive, wagons, EMUs and Metro, the statement added.

In the current fiscal, Escorts’ rail division expects to get ₹250 crore in revenue from the Railways. In 2014-15, the division had clocked revenue of ₹184 crore. Ghosh is a former Indian Railways electrical officer.

The company is also expanding its product portfolio with an eye to supply more components for the Railways as well as Metro systems, including those in Kochi and Lucknow.

High-end tech

Additionally, Escorts is looking at supplying locally manufactured products at a cheaper price to the company from which it obtains technology.

“We are bringing high-end technologies. We were conducting field trials for these products in the past two years. We focussed on components that were not being made in India.

“All of these have a built-in buyback programme….even technology partners are seeing a cost benefit of 30-40 per cent on land costs. I cannot name the companies now, but Germany, Korea and Australia are the countries where we have entered into buy-back programmes,” he said.

Component focus

Ghosh said about 60 per cent of the value of the coaches are accounted for by other components. Axle-mounted disc brakes, bogie-mounted brake systems and door systems for Metros are some of the component areas Escorts has ventured into.

“We are focussing on components such as brake systems for wagons, coaches and locomotives, coupling and suspension systems,” he said.

For now, the company is expanding its existing plant in Faridabad to manufacture components.

“Additionally, the Railways has already invited tenders for brake systems required for running trains at 200 km/hour. This is another area where business will expand,” Ghosh said.

As more and more freight trains from the Railways network shift to the dedicated freight corridor after 2018, a lot of line capacity on the existing network will become free.

This will help the Railways run passenger trains at higher speeds, he added.