Chief Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of a new rail wagon manufacturing facility near Karjan, on Sunday.

The Jindal Rail Infrastructure Limited (JRIL) facility will be available to Indian Railways and other private sectors, and have the capacity to manufacture 3,000 wagons a year.

Jindal has five other manufacturing units in Kutch, but this will be its first rail coach-manufacturing unit.

The factory will manufacture Open Type Freight Wagons for Coal and Iron Ore, Container Flat Wagons (BLC), and Covered (BCN) Wagons for cement and food grain among others.

The factory, in its second phase, will be expanded to manufacture Electric and Diesel Multiple Units for the suburban railway.

The Rs 2,700 crore-project is expected to generate employment for about 4,500 people.

The factory will come up near the Karjan railway station.

Prithviraj Jindal, Vice-Chairman, Jindal Submerged Arc Welded Ltd said: “Jindal SAW Limited has made substantial investments here since 2000. During the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors’ Summit 2009, a number of companies promoted by Jindal SAW signed memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with the Government of Gujarat, one of which was by JRIL for setting up the rail wagon manufacturing facility.”