Guwahati: The Ministry of Railways has received a proposal from North East Frontier Railway for establishing modern rail coach factory in Bodoland Territorial Council area in Assam.
Sources said the Indian Railways earmarked an area to set up the rail coach factory somewhere in Srirampur in Kokrajhar district, along the Assam-Bengal border.
The proposed site for the modern coach factory falls under the Alipurduar division of the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR), the sources said.
This would be the first-of-its-kind rail coach factory in northeast India and is expected to generate huge employment opportunity for the residents of Assam, and especially the Bodoland Territorial Council.
Experts are drawing layouts and making estimates as the modern coach factorywill have the capacity to manufacture at least 1,000 units of Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coach annually.
The Indian Railways now has its three rail coach factories at Kapurthala in Punjab, the modern coach factory at Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh, and the integral coach factory in Chennai.
Sources said the proposed rail coach factory project in Assam is a part of the Ministry of Railways’ ambitious target to start 100 per cent indigenous manufacturing of rail coaches by 2022.
