In a major expansion drive, Modern Coach Factory of Indian Railways in Raebareli, UP, is planning a threefold increase in its annual production capacity to 3,000 coaches by March 2021 and is expected to finalise a Rs 480-crore tender in this regard by December.

"We plan to raise our production capacity to 2,000 coaches during 2019-20 (April-March) and to 3,000 by 2020-21. The tender for the first phase of expansion for Modern Coach Factory is likely to be finalised by December and it will cost Rs 480 crore," Rajesh Agrawal, member-rolling stock, Railway Board told reporters.

The expansion exercise will also create 800-900 jobs at the factory by March 2020, Agrawal said.

Set up at a cost of about Rs 3,192 crore, the Modern Coach Factory produces state-of-the-art, stainless steel coaches with annual capacity of 1,000 coaches.

The factory covers an area of 540 hectare land, which includes a township with need based social infrastructure for providing limited residential accommodation to employees.

The factory will soon start manufacturing metro coaches and has already signed a letter of intent with Maharashtra Metro for six of its coaches.

"We will soon open a tender for the transfer of technology and by next year the prototype will be made. The metro coaches made by us will cost around Rs 8 crore while those being currently imported costs around 12 crore. These Made-In-India metro coaches will lead to standardisation and reduction in costs," Agrawal said.

After achieving production at mass scale, the Railways will also explore the export market for the Made-In-India metro coaches across Southeast Asia, Africa, Middle East and Europe.

A metro test shed and test track is also being planned by the factory using robotics and this can further be used for bullet train as well.

"The compatibility will be such that it can be used for bullet train as well. It will be planned for three speed variants with one being 100 km per hour, plus or minus 20 percent, another will be 160 km per hour, plus or minus 25 percent and for the third one discussions are at preliminary stage and this will be 300 km per hour, plus or minus 20 percent," Agrawal said.

Indian Railways has also been undertaking a makeover exercise for Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains, under which efforts are being made on "war footing" to improve the decor and cleanliness by using LED lights and pest-control measures. The revamp is expected to be complete in one month, he said.