Bidders give railways' Rs 2,500-cr tender a miss

The train-set project was announced by Railway Minister in his budget speech last year

In a setback to the Indian Railways’ plans to adopt train-sets or Electrical Multiple Units (EMUs), none of the five short-listed bidders for the Rs 2,500-crore tender submitted quotes by Tuesday. It was the last date for submission.

The project was announced by Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu in his Budget speech last year. “None of the five bidders have submitted their bids. The companies have asked for increasing the quantum of work under the tender. The Railway Board will now re-examine the proposal,” a senior ministry official told the Business Standard.

A train-set, much like Delhi Metro trains, comprises many coaches that are individually powered by a propulsion system, eliminating the need for locomotives. Indian Railways floated the global tender for procurement-cum-maintenance and manufacture of 15 train-sets with 315 coaches in June. Five bidders had qualified for the initial round in November, including a consortia of CAF & Bombardier; Hitachi with Ansaldo & Kawasaki; Toshiba with state-run Bharat Heavy Electricals; Alstom with government-owned Bharat Earth Movers; and Siemens. Ther deadline for bids had been extended twice in December and February. The bidders are understood to have asked for raising the tender size to 1,000 coaches to make the project viable.

The ministry wants to procure two types of EMU train-sets, comprising 20 rail cars with sleeper arrangement and 16 with sitting arrangement. The winning bidder will have a maintenance obligation for seven years out of its life of 35 years, after which maintenance will be undertaken by Indian Railways. The depot site for the train-sets is proposed to be near Ghaziabad on Northern Railway.

The EMU train-sets will operate at speeds of upto 160 km per hour. Indian Railways plans to introduce these for running Shatabdi and Rajdhani trains without any additional expenditure on the existing track and signaling infrastructure.