Indian Railways floats fresh tender for 44 Vande Bharat train sets in major push for Make in India

In a major push for Make in India, the Indian Railways has floated a new domestic tender for manufacturing 44 semi-high speed ‘Vande Bharat’ train sets, the Centre said on Monday. Only India-registered companies can participate and the minimum local component percentage required is 75.

“The revised tender is in line with the Government of India’s preference for the Make In India policy, the minimum local content percentage has been revised to 75%,” according to an official statement.

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The statement added, “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. Only the companies registered in India can apply and will have to quote in Indian Rupee.”

In August, the Railways had cancelled a global tender it had floated the month before after it emerged that among the six candidates that had submitted financial bids was CRRC Pioneer Electric, in which China’s CRRC is a joint partner.

The Tender is for three-phase propulsion, control and other equipment along with bogies for trains sets. The statement also said a pre-bid meeting for the tender will be held on September 29 and the tender will be opened on November 17.

The bid document states that the train sets will be manufactured at Integral Coach Factory, Chennai; Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala; Modern Coach Factory, Raebareli. The main features of the tender are–i) Train sets shall be manufactured at ICF/Chennai, RCF/Kapurthala and MCF/Raebareli; ii) It shall be local (indigenous) tender; and iii) Two-stage, the reverse auction shall take place.

The government had earlier scrapped three global tenders for the project. The August cancellation had come in the backdrop of rising tensions between India and China. The Railways had then said a fresh bid will be put out as per the revised Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) order.

As per the CRRC Pioneer Electric’s website, it is a joint venture of CRRC Yongji Electric Co. Ltd — a core subsidiary of the state-owned China Railway Construction Corporation — and India’s Pioneer Fil-Med Pvt ltd, set up in 2015. The other bidders for the project, estimated to cost about Rs 1,500 crore, were Indian PSU Bharat Heavy Electricals, the Hyderabad-based Medha Group, the Himachal Pradesh-based Electrowaves Electronic Pvt Ltd, Powernetics Equipments Pvt Ltd and Bharat Industries.

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.

News agency PTI quoting officials said that going by the cost of manufacturing of the first Vande Bharat Express, or Train 18, the present tender would be worth over Rs 1,500 crore. Earlier, the Railways had also cancelled a Rs 471-crore signalling contract of another Chinese firm and scrapped a tender for thermal cameras as again a Chinese firm was seen as a front-runner.