In May 2022, India's Ministry of Railways signed a contract with Chinese company Taiyuan Heavy Industry to purchase 39,000 train wheels worth 1.7 billion rupees, or about $21 million, and it is reported that each wheel purchased by India this time is 1.68% more expensive than the original contract price. Why India want to buy Chinese wheels at a high price? Couldn't India make them by itself?

Why India does not make their own train wheels

Firstly, the processing technology of wheel is complicated. High-speed rail wheels are made from the whole billet (Figure 6), need to be cut, heated (Figure 7), and then sent to the mould for forging forming heat treatment and further processing, and finally processed into finished wheels, and these wheels also need to carry out a comprehensive test (Figure 8), to ensure that meets the standards before leaving the factory.

Secondly, high-speed railway wheels have extremely high requirements for raw materials. Take wheel steel as an example, its raw material is a kind of special steel, which needs to be kept clean at all times, with oxygen content not exceeding 0.0002%, and extremely low inclusions content and uniform distribution.

Although these do not sound difficult, but the actual operation is difficult, the general country is unable to manufacture, at present only China, including five countries to manufacture, so it is not difficult to understand why India to China procurement.

After this, India also to Taiyuan Heavy Industry placed two orders, respectively, purchased 25666 pieces of wheels and 30,000 train axles, two total orders of more than 40 million U.S. dollars, and India, a local industry senior experts said that the output of India's local enterprises can not meet market demand, which is also the Indian Ministry of Railways from the outside procurement of wheels, axles and other components of the main reason.