Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL) on Wednesday said it has received rail supplier status from the Indian Railways. ”JSPL becomes India’s first private company to get approval from Indian Railways for regular rail supplier status for its upcoming and ongoing projects,” a company statement said.

Research Designs & Standards Organisation (RDSO), which works under the ambit of the Railway Board, has approved field performance of UIC 60 kg, 880 Grade prime (Class- A) rails made by JSPL at its Raigarh Plant, a company statement said. Railway Board has accepted the field performance test report of RDSO and considered UIC 60 kg, 880 Grade prime (Class- A) rails are suitable for use in Indian Railways, it added.

”We are thankful to the RDSO for field performance approval. The approval is an illustrious qualification for JSPL’s rail mill, as their evaluation quality and safety parameters are very stringent, and not many rail producers in the world can meet quality norms laid by RDSO,” JSPL Managing Director (MD) V R Sharma said in the statement.

Apart from 880 Grade main track rails, JSPL has also started supplying 1080 grade Head Hardened rails to several metro Rails projects in India which includes Rail Vikas Nigam Limited for the construction of the Kolkata Metro Rail Project and Pune Metro.

While 1080 HH grade rails used in high-speed freight corridors and metro rail projects, UIC 60 kg 880 grade prime (Class- A) rails are required in passenger tracks. JSPL supplies special grade rail blooms to France Rail, Hayange in Europe. The company has also exported 2.5 lakh tonne (LT) of rails through Indian PSUs (IRCON and STC) to customers in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Africa, the company said.