New Delhi, Oct 11 (PTI) US giant General Electric todayclarified that the work on a diesel locomotive factory inBihar's Marhowrah is on track, days after Railway MinisterPiyush Goyal ruled out speculations that the government mightexit the project contract.
The project, a joint venture between the Indian Railwaysand the GE, was announced in 2006-07 to supply and maintainmodern diesel electric locomotives of 4,500 HP and 6,000 HP tothe railways.
The railways had issued the Letter of Award for settingup Diesel Locomotive Factory (DLF) with GE Global SourcingIndia in November 2015.
But with government's thrust on electrification of tracksto combat pollution, there was a buzz, and some media reports,that it could exit the contract for manufacturing diesellocomotive.
"The first of 1,000 diesel-electric evolution serieslocomotives has already arrived at India's Mundra Port,"Vishal Wanchoo, President and CEO, GE South Asia told PTI inthe sidelines of the International Rail Conference and the12th edition of the International Rail Equipment Exhibition(IREE) 2017 held here today.
"The work in our diesel factory in Bihar is on track andas the minister has said there are no changes in thecontract," he said, adding GE was actually ahead of schedule.
"The plan is to deliver 100 locomotives per year on anaverage. The first fiscal year will be little bit more. Weplan to deliver the 1,000 locomotives to Indian Railways over11 years," he said.
Goyal had last month said that there would be no changesin the Marhowrah factory set up.
But, the railway minister had also said that he haddiscussions with top executives of GE to explore how theobjectives of reducing pollution, bringing down overall costand honouring agreements with the global conglomerate be met.
Wanchoo said GE has no plans to manufacture electriclocomotives at the Marhowrah factory.
"GE bid for diesel locomotives and our Bihar plant canmanufacture only diesel locomotives. Two contracts werefloated and we bid for the diesel plant.
"However, we support the government's electrificationprocess. In every country that we operate, we supply theselocomotives. Most countries wherein we operate have anelectrification program, which makes a lot of sense, but thediesel locomotives also co-exist for various reasons as theyare efficient and affordable," Wanchoo said. PTI ASG MPNSD.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.
