Focus on quality or be ready to be blacklisted, Ashwini Vaishnaw tells railway manufacturers

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The Railway Ministry will soon issue stricter quality and processing checks ranging from design to manufacturing, in order to make Indian trains at par with international benchmarks, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on October 15.

The minister directed the Railway Board to appoint people who are ‘ruthless’ in checking processes that go into manufacturing of track components. "They should debar, delist and sometimes even blacklist those manufacturing sub-standard railway equipment and supplying to the Indian Railways. The time for incremental improvement is gone. I urge all track equipment manufacturers to improve processes in manufacturing, quality control, material selection, procurement, heat treatment of materials, final assembly, etc.," Vaishnaw said.

Minister Vaishnaw also urged manufacturers to improve product specifications. "It should be 10x minimum. We have to significantly improve quality - whether it is signalling or earthing or track equipment, or components that go into manufacturing of locomotives and coaches. We should be procuring the best in the world," he added.

Vaishnaw highlighted India’s progress in green technology and announced a 2400-kW hydrogen-powered train, developed entirely domestically. “We will not import this technology. We will design it ourselves,” he said.

Ashwini Vaishnaw said India is working on Vande Bharat 4.0 and Amrit Bharat 4.0, the next generation of high-speed trains with a focus on the export market. Besides, the government is also planning to develop dedicated passenger train corridors and increase the capacity of existing tracks, the minister said at the inaugural session of the International Railway Equipment Exhibition in New Delhi.