As per a report by a leading daily, the national transporter Indian Railways in a major policy shift is mulling over purchase of train sets from private entities in place of manufacturing them in-house. The idea of sourcing train sets including Electric Multiple Unit (EMUs) and Mainline Electric Multiple Unit (MEMU) was discussed at a high-level meeting in which Piyush Goyal, Union Railways Minister, Minister of State of Railways Suresh Angadi, top officials and players into the manufacturing of trains/coach components were present.

Further the report added that Goyal made a clarification that any such sourcing should meet the government's policy initiative of 'Make in India'. Railways Minister earlier during the month said there was no proposal of privatizing the national carrier.

Notably, it shall not be the first-time when ready-made train sets will be secured in the country. Most of the metros operational in the different parts of the country have installed privately-manufactured ready-made rakes. Say for instance, Delhi Metro has deployed rolling stock manufactured by Hyndai Rotem, CAF etc. CRRC Nanjing Puzhem and Alstom produce rolling stock and metro rakes for Mumbai Metro and Chennai Metro, respectively.

Currently, there are 3 manufacturing facilities that produce train sets for the Indian Railways--- the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Modern Coach Factory in Rae Bareli (Uttar Pradesh) and the Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala (Punjab). The proposal to secure ready-made train sets could lead to job losses at the carrier's production as well as ancillary facilities.

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