After successfully delivering five Casnub bogies to Northern Railway last year, Autokast Ltd., a ferrous foundry manufacturing unit in the public sector at Cherthala, has bagged more orders for supplying bogies, this time to Southern and Northern Railway.
Alex Kannamala, chairman, Autokast, said the company had received two orders for supplying a total 65 Casnub bogies for goods trains. "Northern Railway has placed an order for 31 Casnub bogies. We have already started manufacturing the bogies. Besides, we recently received another order for 34 bogies from Southern Railway's wagon manufacturing unit in Tiruchirappalli. We hope to fulfil both orders in three months," Mr. Kannamala said.
Autokast, which was accorded a Class ‘A’ Foundry status by the Lucknow-based Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) of the Union Ministry of Railways in 2019, had bagged a ‘development order’ in March 2020 for manufacturing five Casnub bogies. The first bogie was delivered in August 2021. The remaining four bogies were despatched two months later. Thus Autokast had become the first public sector company in the country to manufacture Casnub bogies for Railways.
For ‘INS Vikrant’
Apart from manufacturing Casnub bogies, Autokast in recent months supplied deck-mounted closed chocks and cast iron bricks for solid ballast (used to maintain stability) to INS Vikrant, India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier, superheater header castings in machined condition to the Golden Rock Railway Workshop in Tiruchirappalli and so on.
Officials, however, said the rising cost of production was a challenge for the company's future growth. "Soaring prices of raw materials and shortage of working capital have become a challenge at least temporarily. But we hope to overcome the problems with the support of the State government and public sector Restructuring and Internal Audit Board (RIAB)," said V.K. Praviraj, managing director, Autokast.
Autokast, which was once listed for privatisation, was revived by the intervention of the previous Left Democratic Front government. According to officials, the government had injected around ₹9 crore into Autokast, which helped it modernise the unit.
