Indian Railways wagon procurement to run on reverse auction track

The Railways had decided to go for reverse auction process from April 1 this year for high-value items

Breaking away from its tradition of floating annual tenders to procure wagons, the Indian Railways is set to come out with a bulk tender for 38,000 wagons through reverse auction method. This is the largest ever wagon procurement of wagons by the Railways and is expected to take care of the additional railway requirement for the next two years.

Officials in the ministry of railways expect the reverse auction to save at least 10-20 per cent of the cost for the railways, on what otherwise is estimated to be Rs 80 billion tenders.

In a reverse auction, prices will typically