London, Sep 3 (IANS) The UK government is in advanced talks with Britain's biggest steel producer to hand over a £500m aid package aimed at securing the long-term future of steelmaking in South Wales, Sky News reported.

Whitehall officials and Tata Steel are close to agreeing a deal that would commit more than £1bn to the future of its Port Talbot steelworks, but which could ultimately result in thousands of job losses, Sky News reported.

The terms of an agreement were subject to change, but that there were hopes of finalising it as early as this month.

One insider suggested that Tata Steel had been trying to persuade the government to increase the proposed funding package in recent weeks, Sky News reported.

Under the plans currently envisaged, the government would commit approximately £500m of public funding to the company, while Tata Steel's Indian parent would sign off £700m of capital expenditure over a multi-year period.

Port Talbot employs about 4,000 people - roughly half of Tata Steel's overall UK workforce of approximately 8,000, Sky News reported.

Industry sources close to the discussions said the company had indicated that over the long term, as many as 3,000 of its British-based staff were likely to lose their jobs.

Electric arc furnaces, which Tata Steel would commit to building as part of the agreement with government, utilise different, less labour-intensive, processes to produce steel than traditional blast furnaces.

The government is said to have accepted during the discussions that some job losses would be inevitable as part of the transition to reducing carbon emissions, although an insider said on Saturday that a number of those could be through workers taking early retirement, Sky News reported.

New Delhi (IANS). The Indian Railways has signed an agreement with Tata Steel under which the company will manufacture 22 trains of the country's fastest and feature-rich Vande Bharat Express in the coming year.

The Ministry of Railways has set a production target of 200 Vande Bharat trains for the next two years, besides setting a target to run the first sleeper version of Vande Bharat by the first quarter of 2024.

Keeping this in view, an agreement has been signed between Indian Railways and Tata Steel on several schemes to speed up the production work.

The seats in the Vande Bharat Express, from first AC to three-tier coaches, will now be manufactured by Tata Steel. The contract for making Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches of the train has also been given to the company, under which structures of panels, windows and railways are being prepared.

Under the scheme, at present, the Indian Railways has given a tender of about Rs 145 crore to the multinational steel company for manufacturing the parts of the train, which is to be completed in 12 months.

The composites division of Tata Steel started working in this direction after receiving a bulk order for seating system of Vande Bharat Express, including 22 train sets with 16 coaches each.

Debashish Bhattacharya, Vice President (Technology and New Materials Business), Tata Steel, said: "The seats of this train are specially designed, which can rotate up to 180-degree and have aircraft-like passenger amenities which are a first in India."

According to sources, Tata Steel is constantly engaged in increasing its stake in the Railways and has also posted officials for coordinating with the Railways.