Sri Lanka: Made in India railway passenger coaches arrive at Colombo Port

At least 10 ‘world class’ custom-made train coaches were dispatched by India to Sri Lanka on Tuesday as a part of $82.64 million contracts signed between two countries in 2017 that committed India to deliver a total of 160 coaches to its Souast Asian neighbour. vibrant ‘Made in India’ coaches arrived at Colombo Port in a display of India-Sri Lanka’s transport cooperation and fulfilment of procurement deal signed by Government of Sri Lanka’s SL Railways and India’s RITES Ltd. 

“India and Sri Lanka’s cooperation in transport sector continues to expand with arrival of 10 state-of--art railway passenger coaches,” Indian High Commission in Colombo tweeted. “This is a part of supply of 160 coaches to SL Railways by RITES which is being financed through an Indian Line of Credit,” he added. 

Ecomic project 'cooperation'

In 2019, India and Sri Lanka signed memorandum for "co-operation on ecomic projects”. India had agreed to supply 6 DMUs, 10 locomotives, 20 container carrier wagons, and 30 fuel tank wagons in addition to coaches to Sri Lanka. India supplied ‘fully funded’ modern Diesel Multiple Units (DEMU) train under ‘Make in India’ initiative to Sri Lanka last year. coaches were equipped with multiple advanced features such as cushioned seats in Business class, rotatable seats in AC chair car, two-flap aluminum windows, modular toilets along with air-assisted flushing, GPS enabled LCD displays, LED lighting, and much more. 

RITES Ltd. is assigned with supply of DMUs and locomotives, and wagons in accordance with deal was to be supplied by Texmaco Rail & Engineering Ltd. India has accomplished deals worth $1 billion for financing Sri Lanka’s railway sector as it supplied ‘Made in India’ trains that are w running on Jaffna and Thalai Mannar lines.

Meanwhile, coaches recently dispatched to Sri Lanka were inaugurated by Minister of Railways Piyush Goyal and minister from Government of Mozambique Shri Janfar Abdulai, Indian Railway informed in a tweet. Sri Lanka has also planned to build West Container Terminal (WCT) at Colombo Port in collaboration with India and Japan. This comes after country scrapped deal to construct East Container Terminal citing 'foreign interference' as an issue.