A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Ministry of Railways and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), a central Government PSU under Ministry of Steel for setting up of a new Rail Axle Manufacturing Factory at New Jalpaiguri in West Bengal. This comes in pursuance of announcement made by the Minister of Railways, Mamata Banerjee, in the Railway Budget 2010-11 regarding setting up of such a factory to achieve self-sufficiency in axle manufacturing and eliminating present dependence on imports.
The foundation stone for this project was laid by Mamata Banerjee in September 2010 at New Jalpaiguri. The 300 crore project will manufacture and supply rail axels for BOX N wagons and others to meet the growing requirement of Indian Railways.
The new Axle manufacturing plant will be set up at New Jalpaiguri on Railway land to be leased to RINL for 30 years. RINL shall invest 100 per cent equity for this project. Ministry of Railways will provide assured off-take of 20,000 axles per annum. M/s. RINL shall also be permitted to manufacture other products in addition to the rail axles.
The project shall have state-of-art axle forging and machining facilities for manufacturing of rail axles. The axle manufacturing unit is expected to be commissioned and start production within two years.
