The Rail Coach Maintenance Factory at Harnaut is all set to be operative. According to sources, Railways will take the charge of this factory by November.It is one of the dream projects of Nitish Kumar, the Chief Minister of Bihar.It will have the pride to be completed on schedule and will be one of the major industrial unit in Bihar
Work on the Harnaut workshop, which is the second of its kind in the country after Perambur, is in full swing. The railways is setting up the ambitious workshop on about 113 acres of land which includes workshop on 76 acres and staff quarters on 37 acres. However, the work on the railway colony is yet to be kicked off.
According to an ECR official, the railways would build about 18 sheds in this workshop. The special feature of the workshop is that it will have the ‘double-stacked coach maintenance technology’ to carry out periodical overhauling (POH) of coaches. The cost of the project, which was initially Rs 98 crore, has been revised to Rs 224.51 crore. The project will be commissioned in November this year, he said.
According to sources, the railways has completed wheel bogie shop, wheel axle shop, heavy repair shop, carriage store shop, plant care shop and light repair shop. Work on carriage repair shop and rail track shop has been going on smoothly. Work on the administrative building and canteen is on, sources said. An ECR official said that the Harnaut coach maintenance workshop has been designed and developed with the latest technology. Bogies of mail and express trains would be provided a comprehensive maintenance on its completion. However, this workshop will have no facility to carry out coach maintenance work of German LHB coaches, he said.
The ECR is one of the biggest zones comprising five divisions. It has more than 2,500 passenger coach holding capacity (number of coaches) which require periodical overhauling (POH) on a regular basis to maintain full safety measures. In its absence, the railways has been sending coaches to Lilluah in West Bengal and Gorakhpur in UP for their immediate POH. The Harnaut workshop will facilitate timely and fast POH of the coaches, a Railway Board official said.
According to sources, the railways has planned the workshop in a modern way. While there will be a special arrangement for the final disposal of waste materials from the workshop, the railways would use the filtered water for horticulture purpose on the sprawling campus. There will be a special sewerage treatment plant on the workshop premises to deal effectively with the final disposal of waste materials, sources said.