Indian Railways plans ₹40,000-cr mega wagon tender for 100,000 units

Industry executives were upbeat about the planned purchases and said they were prepared to meet the Railways’ demand for wagons.

“The industry is completing orders under the previous Indian Railways wagon tender and fresh orders with longer visibility will allow domestic wagon industry to function at capacity and maintain operations of their production lines,” said Sudipta Mukherjee, managing director of Texmaco Rail & Engineering Ltd, which makes, freight wagons, coaches and locomotives.

He said that a third (or about 11,000 wagons) of annual wagon procurement by the Railways under its earlier tender was supplied by the Kolkata-based Texmaco, which has the capacity to produce over 15,000 wagons annually.

Jupiter Wagons Ltd managing director Vivek Lohia told Mint the company was ready to meet requirements of wagons by Indian Railways and hoped that a tender for around 35,000 wagons may be issued soon this year.

Queries emailed to Indian Railways remained unanswered till press time.

The national transporter is currently in talks with manufacturers to assess their ability to supply wagons. Once this consultation is over, it will float a tender, likely in phases. For the current financial year, the first annual procurement plan is expected to cover around 35,000–40,000 wagons, similar to what the industry supplied under the earlier tender, said the second person cited earlier. Based on the industry’s performance over this initial tender, a longer procurement plan could be unveiled later this year, the official said, adding that the assessment of wagon requirements is a continuous process and that orders will be placed as needed.

“Four years ago, Indian Railways confidently ordered nearly 90,000 new wagons. Today, as those deliveries near completion, Railways’ freight sector is stuck with a sluggish 3% annual growth in traffic volume and revenue, sharply reducing the need for fleet expansion. However, starving private-sector wagon manufacturers of fresh orders is also not desirable. It threatens industrial capacity, damages employment, and compromises the routine replacement of condemned stock. There is also a political tightrope to walk,” said Sudhanshu Mani, former general manager at Indian Railways and architect of the Vande Bharat Express.

“With most wagon builders clustered around Kolkata, any drastic drop in employment could create a political headache for the new government. Therefore, maintaining a steady but limited stream of procurement is essential, after determining the type of wagons to be procured, critically based on the freight segment which has grown more or shows a promise of higher growth, including newly designed wagons tailored to specific traffic needs,” he added.

The bigger wagon order by the Railways is also in line with a future demand push, with the dedicated freight corridors getting fully operational and the need to meet the shortages being faced by bulk consumers of the Railways by making available rakes throughout the year. The Indian Railways shipped a record 1,670 million tonnes of freight in the financial year 2025-26 (FY26) and aims to take this up to over 3,000 million tonnes by 2030. This will require the Railways to further scale up wagon infrastructure.

Under the National Rail Plan (NRP) framed in 2022, the railway ministry has projected a doubling of wagon strength from 300,000 to 600,000 by 2030 to boost freight revenues. It has already reached over 400,000 wagon capacity and would need around 200,000 more wagons to meet the target.

The NRP also targets to increase the Railways’ modal share in freight transport from around 27% to 45%. Freight earnings account for 65% of total Indian Railways’ revenues.