Railways attracted $942 million FDI in 11 years: Vaishnaw

The Indian Railways has attracted Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) equity inflows of $942 million over the past 11 years, including under the automatic route, reflecting strong investor confidence in the country’s railway infrastructure sector. Besides, the Railways’ exports have reached Rs 26,000 crore over the last nine years, underlining its growing contribution to India’s economy and expanding global footprint, the Lok Sabha was informed .In a written reply, Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw highlighted that India had developed a robust and diversified railway manufacturing ecosystem over the past decade, comprising the Indian Railways’ production units and the domestic industry base.

“Currently, the industry manufactures almost the entire range of railway rolling stock, including locomotives, passenger coaches, wagons and critical components such as traction motors, gear boxes, motorized bogies, traction transformers, metro cars, propulsion systems, traction and auxiliary converters, cable harnesses, electronic cards, and magnetics,” Vaishnaw said.

These products are exported to developed and developing countries, including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany, Mozambique, Mexico, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Romania, Spain, Italy, and others.

The Railway Ministry has also strengthened its international collaboration by signing Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with Switzerland, Germany, Russia, and Spain. These MoUs cover technical cooperation in freight and passenger operations (including multimodal transport), high-speed rail development, IT solutions for railway operations, administrative purposes, and predictive maintenance of assets, the Minister added.