Tender for purchase of Vande Bharat train sets red flagged for third time

The Indian Railways is likely to come out with a tender for procurement of Vande Bharat Express or Train 18 for a fourth time in one week. Railway Board Chairman V K Yadav on Sunday said while evaluating the technical bids of train set tenders, the tender committee noticed that financial offer details had been revealed.

Some companies had done that in the technical bid stage itself. The third tender for 43 train sets floated in December last year was cancelled on Friday.

The bidding process involves a two-stage system. The first stage includes technical bids and the second stage includes financial bids. Financial bids of only those bidders, who qualify in the first stage, are opened in the second stage. To have a transparency in evaluation, while evaluating the technical bids, financial bids are not available to the Tender Evaluation Committee.

"While evaluating the technical bids of train set tenders, the tender ommittee noticed some of the details of financial offers have been revealed in the first packet ie technical bids. To maintain complete transparency, the committee recommended cancelling this tender and invite fresh tenders. The tender accepting authority or the general manager of the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai has accepted the recommendations of the tender committee," said Yadav..

He added fresh tenders would be invited according to revised public procurement policy under Make in India. As part of Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative, increase in indigenous content from the present level of 50 per cent to a higher level is being planned in the fresh rounds. The fresh tender will have provisions to manufacture Vande Bharat Train Sets at all the three production units of Indian Railways -- including ICF, Modern Coach Factory and Rail Coach Factory.

"We are trying to save the timeline, too. However, there will be a three month delay in the initial stage," he added. This was the third time that tenders for Vande Bharat express were cancelled. Though bids for 43 Train 18 sets were invited first, orders for only three were given – including one for Spanish major CAF and Medha Group that supplied for the first Vande Bharat Train.

Following this, a second tender was floated for 37 Trains 18 propulsion systems that got cancelled. Out of the total Rs 100 crore spend on the first rake, around Rs 35 crore was spent on the propulsion system.

After the bids got derailed, the government's plan to have 45 new Vande Bharat trains by 2021-22 got delayed. Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal had earlier said there was a plan to have 100 such train sets, after the launch of the first indigenous semi-high speed train set Vande Bharat Express from New Delhi to Varanasi on February 15 last year. The train was show piece product under Make in India since it has around 80 per cent indigenous components.