Title - Railway backtracks from Cherthala coach manufacturing unit

Cherthala: It is somewhat clear that the Indian railway is backtracking from the coach manufacturing project in Cherthala, a joint venture of Autocast and the Railways due to financial crunch. The Railway showed the red signal when preliminary works began for the project.
The project was allotted initial funds of Rs 85 crore during the budget presented by the then railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav in 2007. In 2009, the company signed a pact with Railway and the project was named Components Limited. But later the project saw a sluggish pace. During the budget in 2011-12, 2012-13 it was only mentioned that the coach manufacturing unit will be completed under the PPP mode.
The project was supposed to give employment opportunities to 600 people directly and 2000 indirectly apart from the 500 people working with Autocast. There were no issues on land takeover and Autocast owned around 57 acres of land.