Texmaco Rail & Engineering, an Adventz group company, has given a 30-35 percent revenue growth guidance for FY24 and expects a 25-30 percent production ramp-up in the first half of this year. Indrajit Mookerjee, ED & Vice Chairman of Texmaco Rail & Engineering, spoke exclusively in an interview with CNBC-TV18.

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Reema: Give us an update on the Vande Bharat train orders. You were L3 in the order, but there are reports which suggest that the L1 one bidder Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL), and the Russian partner’s joint venture (JV) have been broken.

A: I must make it very clear that we did not participate in the Vande Bharat tender, but this is information that I also have heard that there has been some problem regarding the RVNL – that is all I have heard from a newspaper. So, I have absolutely no knowledge of what is happening there.

Nigel: But what if it comes up for rebidding? Is it a possibility that then you all will look to participate?

A: I would not like to talk very specifically about this subject, but I would like to tell you that our vision and our future strategic plan is to move from freight mobility to passenger mobility. So, this fits into our vision.

The issue is whether we have gathered sufficient competencies to do that because we are in the railways business, and we have lots of competencies in mobility. It is not that we have not done passenger mobility. We have built electric multiple unit (EMU) coaches long back, about 12 or 15 years back. So, we need to really look at that. But we have our eyes on all the passenger mobility business opportunities.

Prashant: You would have given a broader top-down look at the bids etc, which they came in. I think they came in at about Rs 120 crore for each train set. I remember reading an interview with S Mani who designed the Vande Bharat train sets and is now retired saying when the first bids were given out, he said that they seem to be almost unviable because of the player who is in the joint venture, the Russian company, and maybe he was referring to the pricing as well. Any thoughts?

A: It will be a very tough call for me because I have not really looked at the cost. So, it'd be very difficult for us to make a comment about whether the price is good or bad.

Reema: The reason you did not participate in the Vande Bharat tender in the first place is because you believe you did not have the competency, or the capability currently; it's not on account of pricing.

A: That is very correct. I think we are in the process of building out competencies, we are looking at various aspects. And you will very soon see us being aspirants in this segment.

Prashant: Are you going to be tying up with a company, with the required competencies to participate in this space?

A: As you know that we do not have all the requirements for building it because primarily we are wagon builders. So, we are a strong company which is strong in fabrication, and we know the technology on the railways, but there are certain missing gaps. And obviously, we must either develop ourselves or we must look for outside tie-ups. And we would prefer the second one.

Prashant: Anything, in particular, we should expect in the near future?

A: It is too early to say but we are looking at various options. And I hope it will not be too long before I will be able to happily come and talk to you and announce to you what is happening.

Reema: Do you think by next year you would have the required capabilities, the expertise, and the partnership in place for you to go ahead and bid for passenger train tenders? Give us some timeline because this is your aspiration.

A: Absolutely correct. I think I will be happy if we can do it before next year.

Reema: Could you give us an update on how the quarter has been? You all have given us guidance of 30-35 percent revenue growth in FY24. Based on what we have seen in the first three months, will you be able to maintain this revenue growth projection?

A: I think we should be able to do it because unless there are many slippages between the cups and the lips, but I think we should be able to do it because we do not have a problem with the order book, we have an order book which runs into almost Rs 8,000 crore. When initially the orders came to us there were hitches because of various reasons and one of the reasons was the ecosystem, which is our supply system, they did not pick up and then we had a very large number of closed wagons to be made, which are more difficult than making the generic open type wagons.

So, these are all the challenges that we had to pass through. There were also problems with the supply of the wheel sets from the Rail Wheel Factory. And that is all now history. So, barring certain very unprecedented situations, I am very confident that we would be sticking to our guidelines.

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First Published:Jul 5, 2023 5:55 PM IST