CRRC Breaks Ground on Indian Metro Coach Plant in Sri City

CRRC Corporation’s subsidiary CRRC India on Wednesday held a bhoomi puja and ground breaking ceremony in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh to launch construction on its metro coach manufacturing plant to serve India, West Asia and Africa.

Interestingly, this is the second time in 4 months they’ve conducted such an event. More on that at the bottom of this post.

The new plant is coming up on a 45.3 acre land parcel in the Domestic Tariff Zone (DTZ) with an initial investment of Rs. 350 crore. CRRC had awarded its Rs. 136.54 crore construction contract to Ocean Lifespaces India in July 2020.

Photo Copyright: Ramachandra Reddy Palavali

The plant with 2,20,000 sqm of space has been designed by K&K Consultants and is intended to generate employment for over 500 people.

Rendering of CRRC’s Indian plant

CRRC India Pvt. Ltd. was incorporated in December 2019 and the firm signed a MoU with Sri City in February 2020. Prior to this, they had committed to setup a plant at Butibori MIDC near Nagpur in 2016 but didn’t follow through with it.

CRRC was awarded Bangalore Metro Phase 2’s 216 coach rolling stock contract in December 2019 and plans to manufacture 34 trains (204 coaches) from Sri City. On paper, it has committed to 75% local manufacturing (to be increased to 90% in future) and using over 50 per cent local content.

The firm had conducted a similar bhoomi puja & ground breaking ceremony on November 27, 2020 which was attended by CRRC officials and their partners. Here are some snaps from back then:

With this development, CRRC joins Alstom to become the second rolling stock manufacturer based out of Sri City which is about 55 km from Chennai. Elsewhere in India, Bombardier (now owned by Alstom) has a plant in Gujarat, BEML has a plant in Bengaluru while Titagarh has a plant in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal.

Siemens and CAF have proposed setting up plants at various times over the past decade but that has been contingent on them winning contracts.

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– TMRG

written by

Global traveler who prefers mass rapid transit

12 Responses to "CRRC Breaks Ground on Indian Metro Coach Plant in Sri City"

  1. The Indian Railway Guy says:

    Oh well, at least they’re doing something locally. I would still say BEML is by far the best manufacturer for Bengaluru metro. If only there was somehow a way to award the contract to them. If not BEML, Alstom and Hyundai Rotem aren’t bad either. Anything except a Chinese state-owned behemoth will do!

    Reply
    • Avrf says:

      I do agree with you

      Reply
      • X says:

        I completely agree BEML is far better in rolling stock manufacturing……… its time to strengthen India and not make in India…. We have all facilities including state of the art R&D to design and manufacture rolling stock.
        Proud to say BEML is making indigenously design developed and manufacturing Driverless Metro for Mumbai metro and earlier for Delhi RS 10 project along with Hyundai Rotem.

        Reply
  2. Rupraj Sengupta says:

    Crrc dalian and crrc Zhouzhou have a contract to supply 15+10=25 broad gauge rakes to Kolkata metro Kolkata metro has taken delivery of one rake of dalian in 2019 no progress after that!

    Reply
    • Clevin Gomes says:

      This is bcoz the 1st train which they received is going through testing, once RDSO give clearance for safe operation on Dalian rakes, CRRC Dalian will start to deliver further 13 trainsets. According to Metro Rail Blog, When CMRS have inspected Dakshineshwar Extn. They have also inspect Dalian rakes, but I don’t think they will give clearance unless New Garia-Airport Corridor will be ready bcoz of oscillation issues while testing in N-S Line.
      On the other hand, they were plans that Metro trains of Joka-Esplanede line will be manufactured by a Joint collaboration of ICF and CRRC ZhouZhou. But due to some reasons, the matter didn’t materialized.

      Reply
  3. Clevin Gomes says:

    Good, now even if CRRC won the contract fairly, they had to make the metro coaches in India.

    Reply
  4. Hari Puttar says:

    its nice
    CRRC will manufacture in India
    so they can now win more tenders
    they make nice coaches but indian companies first

    Reply
  5. Dd says:

    Plant banega 2 years then 1 years for metro coaches so late

    Reply
    • TMRG says:

      Yup, you’ve got the right idea! Expecting 1st train to roll out no sooner than 2023. Prior to that the first few Chinese-built trains of this contract should arrive in late 2022.

      Reply
  6. Satyanarayan B R says:

    What is the expansion of CRRC?

    Reply
  7. Surajit Sen says:

    If it would be our own Indian company’s factory, then it would have been much better for Aatmanirbhar Bharat, than making a factory of this Chinese company’s subsidiary.

    Reply

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