JOIN USBEML needs to go for local vendors
How did the Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML), a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) under the Defence Ministry, end up making railway coaches?
To answer this, one has to go into a bit of history of BEML which began in 1940 as Hindustan Aircraft Ltd, a company floated by the trio of Walchand Hirchand, Dharamsey Khatau and Tulsidas Kilachand, with active participation by the erstwhile State of Mysore.
During World War II, it was pressed into service as a vital maintenance base for US Air Force planes and had the distinction of being the only such facility in the entire South-East Asia. Post war, it found itself manufacturing railway wooden body coaches as an ancillary activity.
After India gained independence, the facility was nationalised and manufacture of defence-related heavy equipment started. The company was eventually rechristened BEML. In 1964, the coach building division was hived off as a separate unit, setting its own course for growth.
Presently, BEML has three main business verticals – manufacture of defence and aerospace equipment, mining construction equipment and rail and metro coaches besides two other divisions – international business and training – making it a ‘Miniratna’ PSU. With nine manufacturing facilities spread over Mysuru, Bengaluru, Kolar Gold Fields, Palakkad and Tarikere (in Chikkamagaluru district of Karnataka), the group registered a turnover of Rs 3,200 crore in 2015-16 with the coach division alone contributing Rs 1,200 crore.
In 1965, the manufacture of wooden body broad gauge railway coaches gave way to steel body coaches which were made in collaboration with MAN (Machinenfabric Augburg Nurenberg) of West Germany.
It provided a steady stream of orders from the Indian Railways (IR), which was finding manufacture of coaches by its own in-house facility at the Integral Coach Factory at Perambur, Chennai, unable to meet its needs. The BEML has so far made over 17,500 broad gauge MAN coaches for IR.
From manufacturing passenger coaches to making EMU (Electric Multiple Units) was a short but significant step in early 1980s. Since then, it has built over 800 EMUs, MEMU (Mainline EMU) and DEMU (Diesel EMU) for the growing commuter demand of IR. A quantum leap was made in 2002 when ROTEM of South Korea zeroed onto BEML to partner in its bid for the first ever order for 280 coaches for the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, and won it in stiff competition against big guns such as Bombardier, Alstom, Siemens, ABB etc. While ROTEM supplied the first lot of 60 coaches, BEML made the remaining 220. In the process, it joined the league of the state-of-the-art metro coach manufacturers. It has now grown into one of the most profitable ventures contributing to a healthy 38% of BEML’s group earnings.
Starting with four stainless steel metro coaches per month, it soon hit a production rate of 22 per month and presently has its hands full for executing the latest order of 236 coaches for the DMRC.
Completing 1,050 metro coaches, BEML has orders books going well into next couple of years. Apart from DMRC, it has also successfully won orders for 84 standard gauge coaches for the Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation Ltd, and is set to supply 50 coaches for Bengaluru’s ‘Namma Metro’.
Soon after its foray into manufacturing metro coaches, space constraints forced BEML to transfer construction of MAN and EMU coaches for IR from its Bengaluru site to the 20 acre Kolar Gold Field complex which it had acquired in 2005.
In-house inspection
In order to meet the demands of varied types – 25 kv AC broad gauge, 25 kv AC standard gauge and 750 volts DC standard gauge coaches, BEML have also set up separate tracks to carry out in-house inspection and testing by its clients.
Equipped with several robotic spot welders and special purpose machines capable of welding mild and stainless steel sections, it has produced consistently high quality coaches ensuring repeat orders from DMRC, a major factor when it enters the highly competitive world of manufacturing Metro and high speed coaches for exports.
A fairly large number of components and sub-assemblies such as the gangway, and pantographs have been indigenised though major electrics such as propulsion system, voith couplers and brake system etc, continue to be imported, as either scales of economy do not exist or there are no firms interested in manufacturing them in India.
Having set a track record of exporting 50 broad gauge railway coaches to Bangladesh in 1975, and 34 to Sri Lanka in 1980-81, a highly motivated management team of BEML backed by team of over 2,000 trained work force, is busy seeking pastures new and aggressively marketing its capability in the export market in a big way.
However, memories of the notoriety gained by one of its siblings – the defence equipment division – over its less than enthusiastic attempts to indigenise components for the ‘Tatra’ trucks, are still fresh in the public mind. With the Centre’s stress on ‘Making in India’, the coach division will have to pull out all stops in its efforts to set up local vendors for more sub-assemblies at the earliest.
(The writer is a former Member, Railway Board)