India may soon supply metro rail equipment and coaches not only to the various metro rail projects coming up within the country, but also to other projects across the world.

Canada-based Bombardier Inc’s India arm, Bombardier Transportation India Ltd (BTI), is looking at sourcing integrated coaches as well as components and systems from the country to projects abroad. The company has invested over Rs 250 crore in plant and machinery for expanding its operations in India.

As a part of the strategy, it is also in the process of setting up a Greenfield plant at Savli near Baroda for manufacturing passenger coaches for the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC.) ?You can’t set up a unit unless you have sustainable demand. So we’ll definitely be looking at supplying coaches from this plant to metro projects outside the country,? Rajeev Jyoti President and Managing Director, BTI told FE.

Along with this, Bombardier is also expanding the capacity at its existing plant at Maneja. The unit mainly manufactures components for metro and railway systems and one of its largest customers at present is Indian Railways.

Meanwhile, BTI’s engineering centre in Bangalore is already working as a design and testing hub for its international projects. ?The idea is to take this forward so that we can gradually provide all kinds of systems and solutions for metro rails across the world,? Jyoti said.

Bombardier Inc at present supplies integrated coaches, components and systems to metro rail systems in cities like Berlin, Zurich, New York and Los Angeles. In India, metro rail projects are coming up in over 10 cities, including Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Cochin and Chennai.

Bombardier has bagged a Rs 3,000 crore contract from DMRC to supply 424 metro coaches. The Savli unit, which will be initially used to do this, will have the capacity to produce 24 to 28 coaches a month.

Production at the unit is expected to begin by middle of next year.

The company is also eyeing future contracts with Delhi Metro Rail Corporation and is part of a consortium bidding for the Hyderabad metro project.