Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) has entered a memorandum of understanding with Rail India Technical and Economic Service (RITES) to strengthen locomotive leasing and maintenance across plant and mine networks. SAIL is a Maharatna central public sector enterprise and RITES is a Navratna central public sector enterprise. The agreement seeks to reinforce logistics and operational efficiency by combining SAIL's internal rail operations with RITES's technical expertise and access to Indian Railways facilities and spares.

SAIL operates a dedicated mini rail network within plant and mine premises to manage inbound raw materials, in process transfers and outbound finished products. Effective maintenance of the diesel locomotive fleet, supported by wet leased locomotives, is essential to sustain operations and to enable planned capacity expansion. The collaboration aims to improve reliability across the network and to reduce downtime through scheduled maintenance, spare part supply and deployment of skilled manpower.

While Indian Railways continues to accelerate its transition to electric locomotives, RITES retains specialist capability in diesel locomotive operations and maintenance that remains critical for industrial rail users. RITES will leverage its technical knowledge, access to workshops and inventories and a pool of trained personnel to support SAIL's fleet requirements. The arrangement is expected to optimise maintenance timetables, lower lifecycle costs and enhance operational predictability for material movements within industrial sites.

The partners expect the collaboration to allow each organisation to focus on core competencies while sharing infrastructure and technical services to optimise operating expenditure and asset utilisation. The initiative is presented as contributing to wider sustainability goals by enabling more efficient diesel use during transition and by reducing emissions associated with inefficient operations. The memorandum was executed by the executive director responsible for operations at SAIL and the executive director for technical services at RITES in the presence of senior officials from both organisations.