The Indian Railways has awarded a Rs 485.09 crore tender to Kolkata’s Besco Limited for manufacture and supply of 1,200 wagons. A third of these wagons need to be delivered by December 2024-end. According to officials aware of the development, the balance wagons will be delivered in two batches of 400 each by December 2025-end. This tender was awarded to Besco earlier this week.
Besco will be supplying Bogie Open Wagon type (BOXNS) wagons which are primarily used for ferrying coal and steel on the national transporter. The Railways will be billed Rs 34.26 lakh per wagon by Besco which will be manufactured in West Bengal’s 24 Parganas (South) . This rate has been arrived after a counteroffer made by the Railway Board in December 2023.
This is the fifth tender awarded by the Indian Railways for procuring BOXNS wagons in the current fiscal. The first and largest of these tenders has been awarded to Kolkata’s Jupiter Wagons which will supply 4,000 wagons, totalling a tender value of Rs 1,616.96 crore. Texmaco Rail and Engineering, another Kolkata headquartered firm bagged the second largest BOXN wagon tender awarded this fiscal for Rs 1374.41 crore to supply 3,400 units.
The recent tender is Besco’s second this fiscal with an earlier one – also for 1,200 wagons – being awarded at the same winning bid of Rs 485.09 crore.
Gujarat’s Oriental Foundry is the only company which is not from West Bengal to have been awarded a tender for supplying and manufacturing BOXN wagons in this fiscal. Oriental Foundry will be supplying 1,200 wagons for Rs 485.09 crore to the national transporter.
The Indian Railways targets a production of 23,000 wagons in the current fiscal, up from 21,000 in financial year 2022-23. Of these, 21,500 wagons will be supplied by the industry while 1,500 will come from Railway production units in fiscal 2023-24. Total wagon production till January 2024-end stood at 15,498 units in the current financial year.