Russia's TMH-RVNL JV emerges lowest bidder for 200 Vande Bharat trains

The second-lowest bidder for the mega contract is Titagarh-BHEL, which quoted a price of Rs 139.8 crore to manufacture one Vande Bharat train

A joint venture of Russian firm Transmashholding (TMH) and railways-owned Rail Vikas Nigam (RVNL) has emerged as the lowest bidder for the manufacture and maintenance of 200 lightweight Vande Bharat trains, Business Standard has learnt.

The consortium made a bid of around Rs 58,000 crore, with the cost to manufacture one train set at Rs 120 crore.

This is aggressive bidding, considering that the railways’ own estimate per train is Rs 130 crore.

This comes after all the five bidders — French rolling stock major Alstom, Medha Servo with Swiss firm Stadler Rail, German major Siemens with state-owned BEML, Kolkata-based