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The much needed push for Public Private Partnership projects in Indian Railways seem to come with opening the Request for Qualification (RFQ) for diesel locomotive factory at Marhowra in Bihar.
The RFQ opened today and four companies submitted the applications.
The four companies are Electro-Motive Diesel company (EMD), Global Sourcing India Pvt Ltd (GE), Dalian Locomotive & Rolling Stock Co Ltd (CNR) and CSR Corporation Limited.
The factory would be set up for 1,000 diesel locomotives for period of 11 years. The company winning the bid would also take care of the maintenance of first 250 locomotives for a pre- decided period.
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The PPP project would be executed through JV in which Ministry of Railways will have 25% equity, limited to Rs. 100 crore. Tentative cost has been is estimated to be Rs 1,000 crore.The ministry will finalise the applicants eligible for the bid stage.
The Cabinet had approved the bidding for this project in May 2013.The two projects were announced in 2006 during the tenure of Lalu Prasad as Railway Minister. The project along with other PPP project has seen many delays and extensions.
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