In a sign that passenger services of the Indian Railways may take a while to fully recover, the organization has decided to scale down passenger locomotive production for FY 23 and FY 24.
Continuing a shift in strategy from the rollout plan for 2021-22, IR seems to have decided to focus on the production of freight locos for two more years.
The Ministry has issued FY 2022-23 and 2023-24 manufacturing targets for all IR owned production units. These are Chittaranjan Locomotive Works (CLW), Benaras Locomotive Works (BLW, Formerly DLW), the CLW secondary unit at Dankuni and Diesel Modernisation Works (DMW), Patiala.
Indian Railways Production Programme Over The Years
According to the new plan, IR units will target rolling out of 685 and 684 units in financial years 2022-23 and 2023-24 respectively. This is a substantial reduction from the 981-unit target for FY 2021-22 but in the same range as planned output for earlier years.
However, the 2021-22 target is an aberration, as the table below will show. It is not clear what the actual outturn for 2021-22 will be at the end of the FY with another seven months remaining.
The 2021-22 programme was revised to sharply cut production of WAP-7s from 400 units to just 51. IR used the freed capacity to raise the production of WAG-9 class freight locos by almost 3 times to 905 from the original plan of 275 units.
In addition, two other joint venture units, run by Wabtec in Marhowrah and Alstom in Madhepura, also produce freight diesel and electric locomotives as per their JV agreement.
Pandemic Impact and Slow Passenger Traffic Growth
Indian Railways has several reasons to reduce focus on passenger locomotive outturn. The COVID-19 pandemic has destroyed passenger traffic and revenues over the past year and a half. Traffic growth had already plateaued for a few years before the pandemic.
Freight growth continues and is likely to pick up further pace over the next few years. With capacity expansion projects like the Dedicated Freight Corridor and tripling and quadrupling of congested sections getting commissioned, more freight locos will be needed. Besides, right-powering of goods trains to increase average speeds has also led to an increased demand for freight specialist locos.
Besides, IR has also begun the shift from locomotive hauled passenger trains to Multiple Unit/trainset configurations. A policy decision to replace loco-hauled rakes for short-distance passenger services with MEMUs and DEMUs is already under implementation. 44 high-speed trainsets are also expected to be produced over the next few years to run Vande Bharat style intercity services.
The Locomotives production has relation to the present traffic and future projections. With the technological advancements due to renewables, necessitated by environment is a special development which needs special insight in the larger interest. I hope serious thought is given.