Railways kicks off big-ticket contracts this year with orders for 1,350 bogies.

Ending drought of high-value procurement, Indian Railways has given out orders for coaches for the first time this year, giving respite to the industry dependent upon country's biggest employment provider.

Railways has just given out orders for about 1,350 cast steel bogies to be used by Container Corp of India for its flat wagons.

The order was based on a tender floated earlier in September.

This would benefit four manufacturers, only one of which is a listed entity, Simplex Castings Ltd.

The total value of the coaches is Rs. 30 crore at prices ranging from Rs. 1.82 lakh to Rs. 2.19 lakh, according to the order details.

Simplex, owned by the Kolkata-based Mundhras, incidentally is not a traditional manufacturer of either wagons or coaches and has been concentrating mostly on civil construction and engineering. It has bagged orders for 506 coaches worth Rs. 11.30 crore.

Other companies which got shares of the pie -- Frontier Alloy Steels, Orient Steel & Industries and Hindustan Engineering and Industries -- also aren't traditional wagon makers such as Texmaco Rail and Engineering and Titagarh Industries, which have also forayed into coach making in recent times.

DNA