Cimmco Ltd, a wagon maker for Indian Railways, is contemplating going beyond its sole line of business in a bid to derisk its revenues under the management of its new owners, the Chowdharys of the Titagarh Wagons.
Cimmco Ltd, a wagon maker for Indian Railways, is contemplating going beyond its sole line of business in a bid to derisk its revenues under the management of its new owners, the Chowdharys of the Titagarh Wagons.
Providing engineering services to the power sector, manufacturing components for Railways and even building steel bridges are some of the areas being sought by the new management, Umesh Chowdhary, vice-chairman and managing director of Cimmco told DNA.
“We are looking at doing other things apart from wagons as well like making parts of locomotives, bridges and also fabrication work for the power sector including Nuclear Power Corp,” Chowdhary said after the annual general meeting of the company held on Monday in Kolkata, its first in the city after the company’s registered office was shifted from Delhi, post the change in management control.
Cimmco, formerly known as Cimmco Birla, was part of the S K Birla Group and one of the premier wagon manufacturing companies till 2000 when its Bharatpur plant in Rajasthan declared a lock-out due to labour unrest, and the company was referred to the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction.
In 2008, Titagarh Wagons came in as a new co-promoter to revive the company. With its net worth turning positive in June 2010, the rechristened Cimmco was deregistered as a sick company by the Board of Industrial and Financial Reconstruction a year ago.
Cimmco last year received an order for 1,700 wagons, giving it a share of 9% of total wagon procurement and Chowdhary is now waiting for new orders to flow in.
“The new tender, which was closed in August, is yet to be finalised and we are awaiting its outcome,” he said.
Even as it waits for new wagon orders, Cimmco is looking at business opportunities from other sectors.
“We have booked orders for various hydro-mechanical units and some other specialised commodities that have partly been executed. We are looking at operational works of Nuclear Power Corp and also the power sector. So there are other areas which we are tapping in order to bring back Cimmco to its full potential,” Chowdhary said.
Major capital investments are not currently being contemplated for diversification plans. “We do need to create some manufacturing infrastructure for the kind of work we plan to do but that would be more of balancing equipment in nature.”
The Bharatpur plant, which reopened partially in 2008 after a gap of eight years, has stabilised.
“We are churning out up to 220 wagons month, a feat never achieved before. We are constructing a new shed, while we need to build a staff colony,” Chowdhary said.
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