
AMN
Indian railways for the first time has floated a tender to invite private players to build high-speed wheel plant under the Make in India initiative. Briefing media in New Delhi on Friday, Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw informed that under this move, the Railway will procure 80,000 wheels per year with a total cost of 6,00 crore rupees and manufacturing will take place in the country only. The Minister said, manufacturing is expected to start within next 18 months and once India achieves high standard of manufacturing of wheels, it will eye at exporting wheels mostly to European countries.
Responding to a media query regarding Vande Bharat train, he expressed happiness that its trial and testing have been completed and manufacturing is expected to start from October this year. He said, this train can attain its speed from 0 to 100 kilometres per hour in just 52 seconds, three seconds less than bullet train’s pickup speed.