Title - Czech company to set up rail wheel factory in Aurangabad

In a major foreign direct investment proposal in the rail sector, a Czech company has come forward for setting up a wheel factory at an estimated cost of Rs 200 crore in Aurangabad in Maharashtra."We will set up a 100 per cent Indian subsidiary to produce the wheelsets in Aurangabad in Maharashtra," said Joachim Marreck, CEO of Bonatrans India Pvt Ltd here."The wheel manufacturing unit wil be set up at 40,000 sq metre area in Aurangabad at an estimated cost of about Rs 200 crore," said Marreck, adding "the factory will be operational in 2015."The ground breaking ceremony for the state-of-the-art wheel factory will be held in January next year.Bonatrans will employ about 70 people in the fully automated factory in the first phase.A major manufacturer of railway wheelsets in Europe, Bonatrans has share of about 35 per cent share in European market and has already been supplying wheelsets to Indian Railways since many years."We are supplying about 10,000 wheels to Indian Railways and Metros this year. In the beginning we will be manufacturing about 20,000 wheelsets and 5000 axles in a year but our aim is to increase the supply to 50,000 a year," he said.

A delegation of Indian Railways will travel to Prague for signing an MoU with Czech Railway in November.

Railways requires more than three lakh wheels a year for its ever increasing number of trains. Currently, it depends upon import of wheels from China and Europe to meet its requirement as domestic production falls short of the total target.

Incidentally, Railways is also setting up a forged wheel factory at Raebareli in a joint venture with Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd to manufacture about 50,000 wheels annually.

However, the Bonatrans CEO said there is scope for everybody as Indian market is increasing and also becoming competitive.

"We would like to be very close to our customer and we are keen to cooperate with Railways in a big way as Indian market is opening up and very competitive also," he said.

Bonatrans along with several other Czech companies have participated in the recently held international railway exhibition here. Last week, Railway Minister Mallikarjun Kharge while speaking at a function invited FDI in rail sector.