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 the $82.64 million contracts signed between the two countries in 2017 that committed India to deliver a total of 160 coaches to its Southeast Asian neighbour. The vibrant ‘Made in India’ coaches arrived at the Colombo Port in a display of India-Sri Lanka’s transport cooperation and fulfilment of procurement deal signed by the Government of Sri Lanka’s SL Railways and India’s RITES Ltd. 

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

Economic project 'cooperation'

In 2019, India and Sri Lanka signed the memorandum for the "co-operation on economic projects”. India had agreed to supply 6 DMUs, 10 locomotives, 20 container carrier wagons, and 30 fuel tank wagons in addition to the coaches to Sri Lanka. India supplied ‘fully funded’ modern Diesel Multiple Units (DEMU) train under the ‘Make in India’ initiative to Sri Lanka last year. The 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 the supply of the DMUs and locomotives, and the wagons in accordance with the deal was to be supplied by Texmaco Rail & Engineering Ltd. India has accomplished the deals worth $1 billion for financing the Sri Lanka’s railway sector as it supplied ‘Made in India’ trains that are now running on Jaffna and Thalai Mannar lines.

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