Design sharing with pvt cos irks railway units
NEW DELHI: Railways plan to share in-house designs and drawings of passenger coaches with private parties has created a huge flutter in its two production units — the Kapurthalabased Rail Coach Factory (RCF) and the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) at Chennai.
Initiating bulk privatisation of passenger coach manufacture, the Railways permitted different private parties including Jessops and Titagarh Wagons Limited to manufacture different types of coaches for 26 rakes (trains) in 2012.
The plan has been on hold because of stiff resistance from labour unions at the two production units.
“There are issues of Intellectual Property Rights
There are issues of Intellectual Property
Rights and also matters relating to passenger safety. AN RCF OFFICIAL
(IPR) and also matters relating to passenger safety. The Railway Board directive is flawed. Coach designs and drawings cannot be parted with in this manner,” a RCF official said.
Designs and drawings have been jointly manufactured by the Lucknow-based Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) and the production units. These are presently valued at R1500 crore. “It is unusual for the Railway Board to have agreed to provide these free of cost to the private parties”, an official said.
“The 11th plan document (for which the orders were placed) does not envisage outsourcing of coach manufacture, while such proposals have also not been enlisted in the Vision- 2020 document. It needs to be investigated how this outsourcing proposal was inserted into the Rolling Stock Program (RSP) of the Railways,” asked an official.
“Outsourcing activities were being pursued with the aim of expanding the supply base for coach manufacture in view of the ever increasing demand”, a Railway board official said.
Questioning the logic, an ICF official said that the goal of capacity enhancement of both the RCF and ICF had been envisaged for meeting future requirements. “What explains the sudden decision to outsource an activity that is intrinsically linked with passenger safety,” he asked.