It's been almost six years since he has taken charge of GE Transportation's business in India. Nalin Jain, President & CEO, APAC Region, GE Transportation, calls this journey exciting and enriching while also feeling proud about the organisation's contributions to the country in terms of infrastructure building.

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There have been major milestones over the last couple of years starting with 2015 when GE was awarded the prestigious contract of US$ 2.5 billion in partnership with Indian Railways for supply of 1000 diesel electric locomotives and establishing a manufacturing unit at Marhowra and maintenance facility at Roza and Gandhidham. "This is a unique project under the Government of India's ‘Make in India' initiative to localise state-of-the-art technology, encourage local manufacturing and create jobs through skill development," Jain says. "In 2016 we initiated construction work for the brilliant manufacturing site at Marhowra, Bihar and SMART Maintenance shed in Roza."
Marhowra is a unique greenfield project and entails significant execution challenges. "We worked in close coordination with the Ministry of Railways and the Government of Bihar for acquiring the land and starting the construction works. Our team on ground has done an excellent job of working through the challenges and are now in the final stages of completion of the construction activities at site," Jain says.
The teams of Indian Railways, RDSO and GE worked in close co-ordination to design the state-of-the-art of diesel electric locomotive which is fuel efficient, emission compliant and digitally enabled with high reliability and availability. "In the fourth quarter of 2017, we had arrival of the first two locomotives in India from Erie USA and have since been handed over to the Indian Railways on February 22, 2018 in the gracious presence of the senior management team of Indian Railways," Jain shares.
Moving forward, the year 2018 is going to be an important year wherein the locomotive will be inducted into the Indian Railways eco system for commercial operations and maintained at GE's Roza maintenance shed. "We would also be starting our manufacturing operations in Marhowra and will be rolling out our first locally built 4500 HP locomotives followed by the delivery of the first 6000HP locomotives," Jain informs.

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