Stone India, a GP Goenka group outfit manufacturing railway components, is chugging ahead on Dalal Street on slow, but steady accumulation. According to market sources, expectations have gone up after its technical tie-up in October with Sumitomo Electric Industries (SEI) for air springs. Street talk is that orders would come lot more easily as the Indian Railways (IR) presses forward for the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor project with financial backing from a consortium of Japanese companies. Though declining to comment on the ‘Japanese link’, a company source said, SEI, a supplier of air springs for Japan’s ‘bullet’ trains, would lend ‘suitable’ technical might to Stone India in its participation in the IR’s move towards rolling stock and components technology up-gradation. IR plans to replace mechanical suspension system with pneumatic system and install air springs in high-speed trains. IR proposes to upgrade existing 25,000 coaches through retro-fitting of air spring and pneumatic suspension system. The company’s pneumatic suspension control system coupled with the air spring technology would give it an edge in manufacturing and installation of the complete pneumatic suspension system for a new coach or retro-fit of old coaches. The stock today appreciated by 5.5 per cent to close at 160 with a traded quantity of 38,758 shares.

Jayanta Mallick

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