— G.R.N. Somashekar

Sees big biz: Mr V.R.S. Natarajan, Chairman and Managing Director, BEML (right), and Mr V. Mohan, Director – Defence, at a press conference in Bangalore on Thursday.

Our Bureau

Bangalore, July 9 BEML Ltd, maker of metro rail coaches and mining equipment, smells a huge business opportunity of Rs 25,000 crore in the metro rail projects that are coming up across the country, according to its Chairman & Managing Director, Mr V.R.S. Natarajan.

Over a dozen cities could be floating metro rail projects in the next decade. “We hope to capture at least one-fourth of the Rs 1-lakh crore business in metro projects,” he said on the sidelines of an annual news conference here on Thursday.

BEML supplies coaches worth Rs 1,400 crore for the Delhi metro project and has won the Rs 1,672-crore Bangalore contract. Its sights are on Chennai, Pune and Hyderabad.

For the current fiscal, BEML is looking at a turnover of Rs 4,000 crore compared with Rs 2,797 crore for fiscal 2009, driven by all the three divisions – rail, mining and defence. Order book stands at over Rs 5,000 crore.

The company plans to invest Rs 410 crore in existing facilities, including Rs 260 crore at the new Palakkad unit in Kerala, this fiscal, Mr Natarajan said. Last fiscal, it spent Rs 100 crore. “We expect the first product to roll out from Palakkad by March 2010,” he said.

The global meltdown did not affect the company except in procuring small supplies from minor equipment makers. The company grew 11 per cent on an average year-on-year.

BEML has rail facilities at Bangalore, KGF and Palakkad. These would also make coaches for low-speed, medium-speed and high-speed trains and city-airport link expresses that run at 200-250 kph.

“We have signed an MoA (memorandum of agreement) with Alstom of France [for technology] to make light rail, medium and high-speed rail coaches. Alstom will exclusively source components and bogies made by BEML using this technology for its global uses. It is looking at India as a low-cost manufacturing base,” he said.

BEML has another technology pact with South Korea’s Rotem for the metro coaches.

BEML plans to supply 90-100-tonne stainless-steel wagons for the high-speed freight corridors proposed on Mumbai-Delhi and Howrah-Ghaziabad sectors. It has signed an MoU with SAIL for sourcing steel for the wagons, Mr Natarajan said.

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