HBL Power: Signs of change

[fabregas]

@faltooinvestor

As of today, the Brake Interface Unit (BIU) for Kavach is not manufactured only by Faiveley. HBL and Medha also manufacture BIUs. Even Concord Control Systems have the capability to manufacture BIUs and they’ve mentioned the same several times in their concalls.

As pointed out by @faltooinvestor in the Kernex thread, HBL is one of the developmental vendors for Brake Interface Unit (BIU). BIU is one of the components of locomotive KAVACH.

Originally BIUs were manufactured by Faiveley Transport (French company with manufacturing plant in Tamil Nadu).

@Bharat029

The Brake Interface Unit (BIU) produced by Faiveley Transport (now a Wabtec Company) is a critical safety system in Indian Railways, designed to interface with the locomotive’s existing brake system (such as IRAB or E-70) to implement braking commands from the KAVACH (Train Collision Avoidance System) or Distributed Power Control System (DPCS/DPWCS).

My question is: Is there a backdoor opportunity for HBL in the loco KAVACH tenders through BIUs? Will other vendors such as Kernex purchase BIUs from HBL?

Among all the listed vendors HBL is listed to have the largest capacity (1000 sets per annum). However this is dated info since HBL has been classified as a “developmental vendor” since 2022. If anyone has any insights on the pricing of BIUs, their share in each loco KAVACH installation etc. then please throw some light on this.