Railway PSU RITES posted muted performance in the first quarter of FY24-25 compared with the year-earlier period , and is now shifting focus to faster execution of orders including export orders received from Mozambique and Bangladesh to quicken revenue collection, said MD Rahul Mithal.

Operating revenue (consolidated), excluding other income, stood at ₹486 crore in Q1 FY25 as against ₹544 crore in Q1 FY24, which is a decline of 10.8%.

In the Q1 of FY24, the supply of coaches to Mozambique had raked in ₹35 crore, while another ₹25 crore was brought in from Railway Inspection services provided to Indian Railways, for which RITES was the sole nominee, Mr. Mithal told The Hindu in an exclusive interview. 

Due to a change in the policy of Indian Railways, which now empanels four companies – Intertek, Bureau Veritas, TUV (India) and RITES for inspecting wheels, rails, rolling stock and so on, Mr. Mithal said, adding that the revenue from inspection was being shared in four ways leading to a dip in earnings for RITES.

“Also, at ₹5 crore, the export segment has shown a dip of 87%, but fresh orders worth ₹1,200 crore for export of 200 coaches worth ₹900 crore to Bangladesh and 10 locomotives worth ₹300 crore to Mozambique will bring in enhanced revenue by the first quarter of the next financial year,” Mr. Mithal said.

RITES had also created an India Middle East EU Corridor (IMEC) cell with its office, where it is pooling in internal resources as well as hiring additional resources to deliberate with multiple stakeholders including ports and the Ministry of Railways to identify key challenges in building the corridor.

Commenting on the volatile situation created due to the Israel-Palestine conflict, Mr. Mithal said that the current focus in India was to develop the first India-UAE leg of IMEC.

“We are analysing the trade potential, cost of augmenting infrastructure, especially joining missing links, seamless integration of different IT system interfaces for different countries’ ports and railways, integration of regulatory aspects like Customs as each port has their own port and cargo monitoring systems,” he said.

For now, Haifa is still the port in Israel which is the outlet linking to Greece in the IMEC corridor. The current focus in India is to develop the first India-UAE leg of IMEC. We are in the process of assessing the trade potential, as any player will put in capex only if it gets some returns, so it is important to figure out cost-sharing and revenue apportionment details for multiple countries in the corridor so that it is a win-win situation for all players involved,” Mr. Mithal said.