SL to manufacture railway passenger coaches with private sector participation

The approval of the Cabinet has been granted to manufacture railway passenger coaches within Sri Lanka as a solution to the prevailing requirements of the Sri Lanka Railways.

While the prevailing needs require nearly 700 railway passenger coaches, it has also been estimated that the need will increase to about 800 in the coming five years.

The existing passenger coaches are currently of different ages; 30 percent of them are 30 years old, 60 percent are 25 to 30 years old and 10 percent have been in the services for 12 years or less.

A total of 160 passenger coaches will be acquired from India while another 140 coaches are expected to be acquired through the renovation project. However, these will only meet 42 percent of the total requirement.

It has been noted that 50 percent of the total railway passenger coach requirement should be provided expeditiously with the use or renovation of new coaches.

Thereby, the Cabinet has approved a proposal by the Minister of Transport to select an investor in compliance with the government procurement guidelines to manufacture 100 railway passenger coaches with the participation of the private sector.