MoD unveils India’s 1st driverless Metro
Rajnath lauds BEML engineers for ‘good work’
Bengaluru, Jan. 15: Defence minister Rajnath Singh on Friday unveiled the country's first indigenously designed and developed driverless Metro car at the BEML manufacturing facility here.
The minister, who visited the facility, said he was proud of the good work the team of engineers and technicians are doing at the city-headquartered BEML, a company under the defence ministry.
"They are the real warriors of Atmanirbhar Bharat, taking India ahead", he said.
According to BEML, the state-of-the-art driverless Metro cars, being manufactured at its facility here housing the rail and Metro division, are made up of a stainless-steel body with a capacity of carrying 2,280 passengers in six-cars Metro trainset.
BEML bagged a total order of 576 cars for the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA)'s MRS1 project, and the supply is scheduled progressively up to January 2024.
Mr Singh said MMRDA project has 63 per cent indigenous content which will enhance to 75 per cent in next two to three years.
This reflects Indian Industrys overwhelming response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s "Atmanairbhar Bharat Abhiyan” call, he said.
The minister said this driver-less metro project will act as a source of inspiration to other Indian companies, particularly the defence industry to help the country emerge as a manufacturing hub which, in turn, will fulfil the USD five billion defence export target and $25 billion defence industry turn-over by 2025.
Mr Singh expressed hope that MMRDA driverless technology will lead to its expansion into other fields of defence such as tanks and fighter planes in the future.
BEML recently opened its Depot office at Charkop Metro depot, MMRDA, Mumbai for commissioning, testing and round-theclock services for Driverless Metro cars.