SAIL supplied 8.74 LT rail to Railways as against demand of 11.45 LT: Govt

New Delhi: State-run SAIL supplied 8.74 lakh tonne of rail to Indian Railways as against the demand of 11.45 lakh tonne in 2017-18, Parliament was informed on Monday.

Replying to a question in Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Steel Vishnu Deo Sai said the Railways had placed an order of 11.45 lakh tonne rails in the previous fiscal and SAIL supplied 8.74 lakh tonne. He also informed that the company was unable to fulfil the requirement of Indian Railways in the previous two years as well. During 2016-17, SAIL supplied 6.20 lakh tonne rails as against the requirement of 10.05 lakh tonne.

In the preceding fiscal, the steel maker had supplied 6.46 lakh tonne against the order of 8.12 lakh tonne. However, in 2014-15, SAIL managed to complete the order by supplying 5.84 lakh tonne rail as against the requirement of 5.81 lakh tonne. Earlier, the minister had said the Railways would require 14 lakh tonne of steel during 2018-19, of which SAIL expects to supply 10 lakh tonne.

In July last year, Naveen Jindal-led Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) became the first private player to bag 20 per cent of the Rs 2,500 crore global tender by the Indian Railways to supply long rails. Before that, the national transporter was procuring rails from SAIL only.

Naushad Ansari, Joint Managing Director, JSPL has said that the company is well-equipped and has already completed over 50 per cent of the 1 lakh tonne rail order. Indian Railways is looking at 4,000 km of track renewal in 2018-19 and 2019-20 each. Its estimated cost for current fiscal is a little above Rs 10,000 crore.