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Make-in-India Cooperation in Railway Sector

Date: 21 January 2016, Venue: Delhi

Ambassador of the Czech Republic to India Milan Hovorka attended The Rail India Conference 2016 held in New Delhi on January 21th 2016. As one of keynote speakers, he shared his perspective on Make-in-India cooperation in the railway sector between the Czech Republic and India.

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Conveying the optimism, the Ambassador emphasized that The 'Make in India' initiative and all the efforts to change the face of the Indian Railways offered a paradigm shift in the nature of cooperation between Czech and Indian companies. To create the enabling atmosphere, a new Memorandum of Understanding between Czech Railways and the Association of Czech Railway Industry (ACRI) and the Indian Railways had been signed in New Delhi on August 19, 2014 which defined specific possibilities for closer cooperation in the field of passenger and freight rail transportation, building infrastructure, modernization of railways and signalling equipment, and as well as exchange of information and communication.

Ambassador said that the Czech based companies might not have been necessarily the biggest partners their Indian counterparts had in the railway sector, but they would always be a reliable and promising alternative for those searching for high professionalism, leading edge technologies and price competitive products. They might not have been as big as some others but would be big enough to be able to handle any assignment that their partners required from them. The amazing more than 180 year tradition of the innovative and efficient Czech railway industry gave them that level of confidence they need to realize different kind of projects across the globe.

In his intervention, Ambassador also recalled that both countries had a bold record in their railway cooperation. He enumerated a number of areas in which Czech and Indian companies had been working for so many years, including railway wheelsets and their parts, railway bearings, brake systems, control, signalling and interlocking systems, and many of which had a strong Make-in-India component. Other particularly promising areas, where both sides could benefit a lot if they joined their efforts, included traction and auxiliary drives and transaction motors, high-capacity single or two floor train sets, locomotives. 

The Embassy of the Czech Republic in New Delhi would spare no efforts to increase awareness of the existing potential for bilateral cooperation in the railway sector and promote networking between Czech and Indian companies, concluded the Czech envoy.