When one thinks of a city like Mumbai, images of people hanging precariously on footboards of trains to reach their destinations, putting their life and limb at the mercy of divine forces, come to mind. The city’s local trains ferry more than 7.5 million passengers daily on an average daily—2.6 times their capacity. While Mumbai is the epitome of an overburdened urban transportation system, several cities across the country are plagued with limited access, lack of mobility options and scarcity of last-mile connectivity.
This disparity throws open a massive opportunity for firms in the space—both international and national—to tap into the world’s fourth-longest rail network. Over the years, many international companies like ABB India, HaslerRail AG, Hyundai Heavy Industries Group, Mitsubishi Electric Corp, Siemens AG, Sulzer, Toshiba Corp and Traktionssysteme Austria GmbH have eagerly partnered with the Indian Railways in addition to homegrown brands like Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd, Kirloskar Electric Co. Ltd, Saini Group, among others.
However, French engineering major Alstom has managed to stand out from the lot, all while successfully ‘Making In India’ by investing over Rs 13,000 million locally, which possibly even became its stronghold in the country.
In line with the Make in India initiative, the French manufacturing company, which has a team of over 10,000 employees here and is planning to expand it by 15 per cent this year, is looking to build and support its Indian footprint. Since all its domestic projects have over 80 per cent localisation, it works with regional suppliers to strengthen this ecosystem and promote indigenous manufacturing in the country.
It has set up six industrial sites—Madhepura (Bihar), Sri City (Andhra Pradesh), Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu), Savli and Maneja (Gujarat), and Kolkata (West Bengal)—and four major engineering centres—Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Gurugram and Baroda—so far.
The Coimbatore plant—its largest in Asia—is the latest to join the cohort and saw an investment of $28.32 million. Spread across 15 acres, the Coimbatore site has an installed capacity of 2.1 million hours, which will offer a higher degree of production diversity and complexity, including integration and testing of tractions, auxiliary converters, cubicles, driver desks and rolling stock looms.
"In November 2021, we inaugurated our new components manufacturing facility in Coimbatore. This is dedicated to improving industrial efficiency in manufacturing components for various prestigious national and international projects," Alain Spohr, MD, Alstom India and South Asia proudly claims, adding that the site delivers to Alstom's Indian sites and those across Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America.
The MD points out that Alstom India also caters to the international market requirements by delivering engineering, components, and fully built train sets for various cities across the globe—from Sydney to Montreal. "This displays global-standard manufacturing out of India, setting a new benchmark for Indian manufacturing and improving export capabilities from the country," he says.
Spohr says that Alstom’s Maneja factory in Gujarat has been a long-standing partner of the Indian Railways and a key supplier of insulated gate bipolar transistors-based traction converters to the Indian Railways' manufacturing unit. "We are positive about further growth in orders by 2025," says an optimistic Spohr.
Alstom has also managed to take a leadership position because of its acquisition of Canadian-German rail transport manufacturer Bombardier Transportation in January 2021. Celebrating the first anniversary of this acquisition, Henri Poupart-Lafarge, chairman and CEO of Alstom, says, "Alstom is making solid progress with strong growth momentum. With our extended scope and portfolio, we continued to win in a strong market environment, driven by large scale investments into sustainable mobility."
From Delhi Metro, Chennai Metro, Lucknow Metro to the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India, Alstom has succeeded in bagging big-ticket projects to supply metro cars, train sets, telecommunication systems and more. It has also provided signalling solutions and infrastructure for the Bengaluru Metro, Delhi Metro and Kochi Metro. A more interesting story, however, lies in its ongoing projects.
Along with metropolitan projects like the Mumbai Metro Line 3, the company is also working on Agra—Kanpur Metro and the Delhi–Meerut Regional Rapid Transport System.
As an increasing number of metro routes come up in Tier II and Tier III cities, especially with Metrolites (light urban rail transit system), Alstom stands to gain long term while continuing with its Make in India initiative that balances global expertise with local prices.
India has been a key money-spinner for most companies offering infrastructure and tech solutions for the Indian Railways. Currently, Alstom has a strong order backlog of €4 billion from its India operations, including some leading mainline and urban mobility projects.
Through its various projects, Spohr states that over the past five years alone, Alstom has contributed over €438 million in indirect and induced GDP to India's economy along with over 106,700 direct, indirect and induced jobs.
Having said that, Spohr also rues that the time between the government inviting bids for a project and its commissioning is long. "The initial phase of development for any project and obtaining all permits to start project execution and financial closure takes a lot of time in India. The Indian Railways should look to set up an independent body to supervise project execution and step in to make quick decisions when projects are stalled," he suggests.
Spohr says that the company is focused on constantly improving the sustainability of its solutions by tracking and minimising their environmental impact throughout their life cycles.
For instance, about 96 per cent of the mass of materials and components used by Alstom, which is producing metro train sets at the urban rolling stock manufacturing unit in Tricity for Mumbai Metro Line 3, is recyclable and 99 per cent of them can be recovered. Similarly, the company also claimed that its e-locos could save up to 79g of CO2 per kilometre for every ton of goods transported, supporting the Indian Railways' vision to become the world's first Green Railway.
"Having contributed to every one of India's metro projects, our solutions are designed with eco-design principles in mind which provide energy efficiency in rail transportation systems, air emission reduction, recyclable material and a circular production for end-of-life management," he explains.
The MD reiterates that Alstom's solutions help to increase passenger capacity and maximise availability and reliability with its increased global reach to respond to the ever-increasing need for sustainable mobility.
