Railways issues fresh ‘domestic’ tender for manufacturing 44 Vande Bharat trains

The Indian Railways has floated a revised tender for procuring 44 semi-high speed 44 Vande Bharat trains mandating 75% domestic component making it a domestic tender, the railways ministry announced on Monday.

The government had earlier scrapped three global tenders for the ambitious project. According to the new tender, only companies registered in India can apply.

Railways had last month cancelled its global tender issued for manufacturing 44 sets of semi-high speed Vande Bharat trains after a Chinese joint venture company CRRC Pioneer Electric (India) Private Limited emerged as the only foreign bidder for the tender that was floated in July.

According to officials aware of development the tender is estimated to cost around ₹2,000 crore.

“The revised tender is in line with Government of India’s preference for Make In India policy, the minimum local content percentage has been revised to 75%. It is the first big tender under revised DPIIT norms of Atma Nirbhar Bharat having at least 75 % domestic components. This tender is now a domestic tender. It shall be local (indigenous) tender in which a two stage reverse auction shall take place,” the ministry spokesperson said.

The tender is for three phases of the project; propulsion, control and other equipment along with bogies for the train sets.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) had revised public procurement order issued on June 4 to encourage domestic manufacturing. The bids are scheduled to be opened on November 17. A pre-bidding conference for the tender will take place on September 29, the ministry said.

The train sets will be manufactured across three railways’ coach manufacturing units: Integral Coach Factory, Chennai; Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala and Modern Coach Factory, Raebareli.

Indian Railways’ Integral Coach Factory, Chennai had floated a tender for manufacturing 44 rakes or train sets of semi-high speed Vande Bharat trains on July 10.

The other five bidders included state-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, Bharat Industries, Sangrur, Electrowaves Electronics (P) Ltd, MEDHA Servo Drives Private Limited, Powernetics Equipment India Private Limited, according to the railways ministry.

The ambitious ‘Make in India’ project involves the manufacturing of 44 train sets comprising 16 coaches each for Vande Bharat.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had flagged off the maiden run of a Vande Bharat train on the New Delhi-Varanasi route on February 15, 2019. The second such train service between New Delhi and Shri Mata Vaishnodevi Katra was flagged off by home minister Amit Shah on October 3, 2019.