KCR opens India’s largest private rail coach factory, says no fake MoUs in Telangana

HYDERABAD: “There are no fake agreements in Telangana, there is only true industrial growth supported by an ecosystem painstakingly built by the Government,” Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) has said.

The Chief Minister addressed the gathering after inaugurating India’s largest private-sector rail coach factory set up by Medha Servo Drives Private Limited at Kondakal in Rangareddy district on Thursday, June 22, 2023.

Expressing happiness over the speedy grounding of phase-I of the coach factory taken up at a cost of Rs 1,000 crore, KCR said that the region, which once lagged behind in industrial growth, had been exporting its products all over the world.

“Sectors such as pharma, poultry and vaccine manufacture grew in Telangana because of the ecosystem that surrounds it,” he said, adding that a Malaysian firm came forward to set up an ancillary unit near the rail coach factory.

Attributing the industrial growth achieved by the state to TS-iPASS, the Chief Minister said that he formulated the policy after studying industrial policies of more than 70 countries. “Nowhere in the world, Government officials were fined for not clearing files within the stipulated time,” he said. He said that he always called TS-iPASS a true single window without grills.

KCR said that the Medha group, established by two entrepreneurs from Warangal, Kashyap Reddy and Srinivas Reddy, was selected for manufacturing coaches for the Mumbai Mono Rail project.

“The Telangana Government would stand behind you all the time. We want the railway coach manufacturing and the ancillary industries sector to grow leaps and bounds in Telangana,” he said.

Earlier, the Chief Minister formally inaugurated the phase-I facility and went around the factory. He spent time understanding the various activities that were going on inside the factory floor.

The facility at Kondakal has an annual capacity of manufacturing 500 coaches of various types and 50 locomotives. It will also provide 2,200 jobs including 1,000 direct and 1,200 indirect jobs. Medha Servo Drives was established in 1984 and has been supplying various products to Railways since 1990.

Medha is India’s largest propulsion equipment (Electronics) supplier to Indian Railways. It has an annual turnover of Rs 2,500 crore and has employed about 7,500 people, all over the world. Medha manufactures coaches for the Indian Railways and will soon commence manufacturing the complete Mumbai monorail train sets. Medha also owns various subsidiary companies in Spain, Italy, USA, Brazil and Poland for serving railway customers across the world.

Despite the incessant delay in setting up a railway coach factory by the Centre within six months of the formation of Telangana as per the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act 2014, the new State went ahead and signed an MoU with Medha for setting up a coach factory in Telangana on October 27, 2017.