Jindal receives regular rail supplier status from Indian Railways

Mumbai: Indian Railways has awarded Jindal Steel and Power Ltd the regular rail supplier status for manufacturing and supplying rails for its upcoming and ongoing projects.
Research Designs & Standards Organisation (RDSO), which works under the ambit of the Railway Board, has approved field performance of the UIC 60 kg, 880 Grade prime (Class-A) rails made by JSPL at its Raigarh Plant.

The company had been supplying the required rails to RDSO for the past 1 year for evaluation and testing.

“The field performance of rails supplied by M/S JSPL has been evaluated after completion of one year trial period as per approved protocol,” said the letter from Ministry of Railways to JSPL.

The company said that with this order, JSPL becomes India’s first private company to get approval from Indian Railways for regular rail supplier status.

“It’s a landmark development towards India’s quest for AtmaNirbhar Bharat and it is a momentous occasion for our rail business. We are thankful to the Ministry of Railways and the Ministry of Steel for encouraging domestic manufacturing of Rails,” said V.R. Sharma, managing director, JSPL.

Apart from 880 Grade main track rails, JSPL has also started supplying 1080 grade head hardened rails to several metro rail projects in India which includes rail vikas nigam ltd for the construction of the Kolkata Metro Rail Project and Pune Metro.

“Earlier RDSO had approved the 1080 grade HH rails, and JSPL has developed special rails, asymmetric Rails, R260, and 1175HT grades for heavy load carrying wagon units of 75 tones /wagon,” the company said in a statement.

The company also supplies special grade rail blooms to France Rail, Hayange in Europe. JSPL also exported 2.5 Lakh tonnes of rails through Indian PSUs to customers in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Africa.