Titagarh Wagons-Bhel consortium to build 80 sleeper Vande Bharat trains

A consortium of Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) and Titagarh Wagons has been awarded the contract to build 80 sleeper Vande Bharat trains, the former said in an exchange filing on Tuesday.

The listed PSU informed exchanges that it is the lead partner in the joint venture (JV) and will be supplying the trains over a period of six years.

The JV has won the order, however, the amount they'll be receiving from the national transporter would be much lower than what it had initially quoted.

Under the tender conditions for 200 Vande Bharat trains, the second-lowest bidder would have to match the price of the lowest bidder. Russia's Transmasholding (TMH) and state-owned Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd had quoted the lowest price of Rs 120 crore per trainset, which BHEL JV has agreed to.

The original ask by the heavy industry firm was Rs 139.8 crore per trainset.

These trainsets will be manufactured at railways-owned Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai. The maintenance of these trains will be done for 35 years.

The financial bids for the tender were opened on March 1, with French rolling stock major Alstom, Medha Servo with Swiss firm Stadler Rail, German major Siemens with state-owned BEML, BHEL JV, and TMH-RVNL, having qualified in the technical round earlier.

Currently, Vande Bharat trains are running solely with seating facilities, which limits their ability to undertake long-distance journeys.

This order will also take the railways one step closer to introducing sleeper-class Vande Bharat trains, an announcement Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw made recently.