The Ministry of Railways and the State government on Thursday signed a pact to establish a rail coach factory near Kolar at a cost of Rs. 1,460 crore.
Vandita Sharma, Principal Secretary, Infrastructure Development Department, Karnataka, and K. Swaminathan, Advisor Project (Mechanical Engineering), Railway Board, signed the memorandum.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Minister of State for Railways K. Surya Prakash Reddy and Union Minister of State (Independent Charge), MSME, K.H. Muniyappa were present.
Speaking after the memorandum was signed, Mr. Muniyappa, during whose tenure as Minister of State for Railways the coach factory was announced in the Railway Budget, said that the factory would provide direct employment to over 5,000 people. It would also provide indirect employment to 10,000 people when fully operational.
Complimenting Railway Minister M. Mallikarjun Kharge for his initiative to fast forward the project, Mr. Muniyappa said that 1,100 acres of land, being given free by the State government, is available for the project. Another 500 acres of land are to be acquired.
Initially, the factory would produce 500 state-of-the-art railway coaches and in the second phase, the capacity would be increased to 1,000 coaches a year, he said without mentioning the date of commencement of production.
A release from the South Western Railway said that the project is being executed on cost sharing basis between the Railways and the State government. On completion, the Kolar factory would be the fourth such factory of the Railways in the country.
