Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has requested the Railway Ministry to consider setting up of an integrated coach factory for aluminium bodied train sets in Odisha.
In a letter to the Railway minister Piyush Goyal on Monday, he said in the context of production of high-speed aluminium bodied ‘Train 20’ sets to be rolled out by the ministry by 2020, the state government is keen to set up the integrated coach factory for these train sets in Odisha.
Justifying his claim, Naveen said Odisha is the largest producer of aluminium and houses about 56 percent of the smelting capacity of the country. Besides, the state government is developing a dedicated aluminium park where molten aluminium can be directly obtained from the smelter of the National Aluminium Company (NALCO) for manufacturing of the train sets.
“In view of the unique advantage in the state, the production cost for the coaches could come down substantially through the use of committed feedstock from the mother plant in the immediate vicinity,” he pointed out.
The chief minister further said that the state has also identified downstream and ancillary metal sector as one of the five focus sectors and is committed to provide unmatched facilitation support to manufacturing investments in the state.
