Titagarh Rail Systems

Context

The founder of Titagarh Rail Systems, Jagadish Prasad Chowdhary, commenced his professional journey as an account assistant at a tea estate in Darjeeling, West Bengal. Subsequently, he relocated to Calcutta (now Kolkata) and assumed the role of an accountant at a steel casting company that supplied materials to the Indian Railways. Chowdhary eventually assumed the position of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the steel castings company.

In the year 1982, Chowdhary as an entrepreneur acquired the defunct foundry division of the government-owned Britannia Engineering then under liquidation, situated in Titagarh, Barrackpore, West Bengal. Renaming the enterprise as Titagarh Steels Limited (TSL), he commenced  production of railway casting components, specifically bogies and couplers & crossings and turned around the operations of the Foundry in a record time. In 1994, Chowdhary was invited to present a rehabilitation plan for the two Paper Mills of the then sick Titagarh Paper Mills Company Limited which were vested in TSL by a Scheme of Rehabilitation by the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR). Subsequently, these Paper Mills were spun off into two separate companies through a Scheme of Arrangement sanctioned by the Hon’ble High Court, Calcutta.[16]

Development

Chowdhary founded Titagarh Rail Systems Limited on 3 July 1997 to manufacture railway wagons.[16][17] The company started out with an annual production capacity of 180 wagons.[16]

In July 2010, Titagarh Rail Systems purchased the French rail wagon maker Arbel Fauvet Rail (AFR) for €15 million (first overseas acquisition), which had gone into receivership in February 2009.[18][19] Titagarh Rail Systems turned around AFR and with the subsidiary's revenue rising from inr 99500000 in 2010–11 to inr 1640000000 in 2011–12, and the employee headcount almost doubling from 85 to 150.[20] A French commercial court ordered the liquidation of AFR in July 2019. The next month, Titagarh announced that it would exit from AFR. Vice-chairman and managing director, Umesh Chowdhary, stated that AFR had been making losses of €4–5 million a year for the past three years due to general economic factors, and would have required more capital to reach profitability. Titagarh Rail Systems had invested inr 1000000000 in AFR since acquiring the company.[21]

Titagarh Rail Systems acquired Corporated Shipyard in 2012 and merged it in Titagarh Marines to manufacture ships for the Indian Navy. Corporated Shipyard won its first defence contract in 2017.[22][23]

In 2015, Titagarh Rail Systems acquired the brand name and know-how of French cast steel bogie manufacturer Sambre et Meuse.[24] On 16 July 2015, Titagarh acquired a 90% stake in Italian rail equipment firm Firema Trasporti for an estimated 25 EUR million. The remaining 10% stake was held by Italian company Adler Plastics SpA.[25][26] In June 2017, Titagarh announced that it had acquired the 10% stake from Adler Plastics for an undisclosed amount.[27][28] The company was subsequently renamed as Titagarh Firema SpA. Titagarh Firema designs metro rail coaches and manufactures them at its factories at Caserta, Spello and Tito.[29]

In May 2016, Titagarh Rail Systems formed a 50/50 joint venture with French Matiere SAS to manufacture metallic and modular bridges.[30][31] Titagarh Rail Systems acquired Matiere's stake in July 2020, making it a wholly owned subsidiary.[32][33]

In 2019, Titagarh Rail Systems was awarded the contract to supply 102 aluminium bodied metro rail coaches for the Pune Metro by Maha Metro.[34] While 3 of the total 34 rakes would be manufactured at the Firema plant in Italy, the remaining 31 trainsets would be manufactured at TRSL's facility in Uttarpara, Kolkata.[35]

In April 2023, the company secured a inr 3500000000 contract to supply rolling stock for the Ahmedabad Metro.[36]

In February 2024, the company secured a inr 1700000000 contract for supplying 250 specialized wagons to the Ministry of Defence.[37]

In March 2024, the company secured a inr 19090000000 contract for supplying 4463 BOSM Wagons to the Ministry of Railways.[38]

the company was looking for to construct a greenfield shipyard to construct larger ships, both naval and commercial.[39]