About Integral Coach Factory Act
The Integral Coach Factory is one of the earliest production units of independent India. It was inaugurated by the first Prime Minister of India Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru on 2nd October 1955. Later the Furnishing Division was inaugurated on 2nd October 1962 and the production of fully furnished coaches steadily increased over the years. Spread over 511 acres, it has more than 9500 employees to turn out more than 4000 coaches every year which include conventional and self-propelled coaches, in LHB and other designs.
Production:
ICF has the capability of designing and developing any variant with an in-house facility. Every year, new variants are added to the product mix. ICF continues to experiment with the design & development of new type coaches such as self-propelled and other special type coaches.
Growth by leaps and bounds:
Production of indigenously manufactured all-steel all-welded railway shells started in the year 1955 with an installed capacity of 350 numbers per annum. The production was steadily increased duly augmenting infrastructure over the years and 1000 coaches were turned out for the first time in 1990. ICF has surpassed the magic figure of 4000 (4166) coaches in 2019-20. Despite COVID restrictions, ICF has overcome the hurdles and turned out 1954 coaches for the production year 2020-21. These include 13 state-of-the-art NMR coaches, 7 Vistadome tourist coaches, 1209 LHB Coaches, 4 rakes for Kolkata Metro and 34 rakes of MEMU.
Railway Board is planning to operate MEMU (Mainline Electrical Multiple Unit) trains between the cities to relieve the locos which can be put for other mainline operations and to save engine turnaround time. The new MEMU trains have been fitted with bio-toilets and will serve distances of 300 to 500 kilometres at about 100 kmph. Unlike regular trains, MEMU train sets require maintenance only once every 10-15 days. The main advantage of MEMU trains is that they allow for faster acceleration and deceleration. In specific, during December 2020, ICF has manufactured 9 states of the art III phase Main Electric Multiple Units, which is the highest ever outturn of this type of rakes in a month by any Production unit of Indian Railways. ICF is planning to turn out more MEMUs in the coming years.
Export:
ICF has exported more than 650 coaches, shells and components to countries such as Thailand, Burma, Taiwan, Zambia, Philippines, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Mozambique, Malaysia, Angola and Sri Lanka which also includes exports of shells and coach components. ICF has already dispatched one rake against the order of two rakes of 1600 HP DEMU for Nepal Railways. Recently, ICF has exported 77 mainline coaches for Sri Lanka against the total order of 160 coaches.
ICF – Green Producer:
ICF is known for its efforts in the eco – preservation front be it the creation of exclusive green forests in the ICF surroundings, installation of windmills and solar panels for the generation of electricity. ICF is a Zero discharge factory and also a ‘Green Workshop’. ICF has developed Greenhouses in its premises, where it would develop saplings and it is supported by a Poly House where the seeding process for the saplings would be undertaken. ICF has become the only organization in Indian Railways to have completely neutralized greenhouse gas emission due to its industrial activity and achieved Carbon Negative status
Milestones of ‘Team ICF’:
ICF had completed glorious 65 years since inception and has turned out more than 65,000 coaches, the highest by any rail coach manufacturer in the world. Today, ICF is the front runner in the manufacture of self-propelled coaches viz. EMU, MEMU, SPART, OHE Tower car, SPIC and DEMU in the country. In 2018-19, ICF took a giant leap by rolling out India’s first semi high-speed train set, Train 18 (Vande Bharat Express) that was flagged off by our Hon’ble Prime Minister of India from New Delhi to Varanasi. The second rake of Vande Bharat Express was also turned out by ICF during May 2019. The 16 coach semi-high speed Trainset with 80% indigenous inputs manufactured by ICF under the “Make in India” project consists of 16 coaches and is designed for a Maximum Operating speed of 160 kmph.
Recent Achievements:
ICF had bagged the prestigious EN 15085 certificate for specific welding standards for the manufacturer of railway vehicles and components. ICF is the first production unit of Indian Railways to acquire such certification. This is another jewel in the crown of ICF.
ICF rolled out two new design Vistadome tourist coaches built on the LHB platform which had completed 180 KMPH oscillation trials and Hon’ble Prime Minister of India has launched the Jan Shatabdi express between Kevadia and Ahmedabad attached with the vista dome coach. The squeeze test for the vista dome shells was earlier done successfully at ICF.
VENDOR REGISTRATION – INSTRUCTION AND PROCESS
The procedure for registration of firms for supply of stores to Integral Coach Factory are detailed below:
The essence of purchasing is rational source selection. The registration of firms as approved suppliers is done after assessing the capacity and capability of the firms.
The application forms for registration are available on sale from the Registration Section of the office of the Controller of Stores, Shell Division, ICF, Chennai.
The cost of the application form is fixed as Rs.50/- and if the application form is required to be sent by post, a sum of Rs. 50/- is to be paid by the firm towards postal charges. For SSI units registered with NSIC the postal charge of Rs. 50.00 only is collected, if the application form is required by post.
Along with the application form, an index of group headings, a questionnaire and a checklist containing instructions are issued.
The application forms, completed in all aspects, are to be submitted with a sum of Rs.50.00 towards the registration fee. The documents are to be submitted to the Registration section. Incomplete applications are liable to be summarily rejected.
To expedite registration, new firms seeking registration are asked to register with the Zonal Railway covering the place where the firm is situated and then approach ICF for registration with a copy of enlistment issued by the Zonal Railway concerned.
If a firm is on the DGS&D and Railways approved list, a reference will be made to those organisations, calling for performance reports. Where the performance is unsatisfactory, registration will be refused.
The initial registration is for 2 years; the performance of the firm is reviewed and the registration is extended for a further 3 years. It may be noted that it is the responsibility of the firm to get them renewed before the expiry of registration.
Monetary limits are carefully fixed, keeping given the Banker’s reports, capacity and capability of the firm and other financial pieces of information indicated in the Balance sheet, Profit and Loss statements.
The monetary limit does not debar a vendor from securing order over this ceiling, or for groups of stores other than that registered for, provided that ICF is satisfied with the capacity, and a Security Deposit would be payable.
The concessions available to SSI units registered with NSIC are
Supply of registration documents free of Cost, Automatic registratioN, (provided all the documents are furnished) and no registration fee of Rs.50