New Delhi:Stainless steel consumption will rise by at least 140,000 tonnes over the next one year or so after the railway minister announced plans to build new freight wagons and passenger coaches from the metal, a senior industry official said on Tuesday.
Railways boss Lalu Prasad Yadav told parliament that 20,000 new freight wagons would be needed in 2008/09 and they would be constructed from stainless steel. He added that all new passenger coaches would be made from the commodity by the following year.
“Each (freight) wagon will use 7 tonnes of stainless steel. Twenty thousand such wagons will be made requiring 140,000 tonnes of stainless steel nickel-free grade in the coming year or so,” said N.C. Mathur, president of the Indian Stainless Steel Development Institute.
Mathur, who is also a director at the country’s largest stainless steelmaker, Jindal Stainless, said that prices of stainless steel would not be significantly affected.