The profits earned by the railways would cross the Rs one lakh crore mark in the next financial year. Railway Minister Lalu Prasad announced this after laying the foundation stone of the Rs 1417.23 crore train wheel factory at Bela in Bihar, marking the beginning of the construction work on the project.Prasad, billed as the person who pulled the railways out of the red, also virtually kicked off his election campaign seeking the blessings of the people of his Chapra constituency who have returned him to the Lok Sabha thrice."I made my electoral debut from here in the 1977 general elections and won. The people of Chapra made me lucky for a second time in 1989 Lok Sabha polls as barely months after winning it I became the chief minister of Bihar and after they chose me for the third time I became the railway minister," he said."I hope that the people of the constituency will continue to shower their blessings on me even in the future," he said.Trashing the opposition's charge of giving preferential treatment to Bihar in granting railway projects, Prasad said he had never ignored the genuine claims of other states."From Chapra to Rae Bareli to Kerala, I have sanctioned railway projects without any bias," he said. On the proposed rail wheel factory, third in the country, Prasad said it would annually produce one lakh wheels. The comprehensive contract for setting up the factory and allied structures has been awarded to Larsen & Toubro. The company bagged the order while competing with two other bidders-Tata Projects and Gammon India.For the project, Griffin (USA) will provide the technological knowhow and the wheels to be produced would be far more superior in quality than those being currently used by the railways.The technology patent would remain with the Indian Railways even after the completion of the factory, railway sources said, adding the cost of production per wheel would be Rs 24,000 as against Rs 51,644 at present.The railways get 1,15,000 and 70,000 wheels annually from the rail wheel factory at Yelahanka near Bangalore and Durgapur Steel Plant respectively. While the Yelahanka unit is a railways-owned subsidiary, Durgapur Steel Plant comes under the union heavy industries ministry.L&T, apart from setting up the wheel factory, will construct nearly 600 houses for about 1000 employees, a health unit, building of a central school, community hall, shopping centre and the staff canteen, the sources said.
