A joint venture between Russian firm Transmashholding (TMH) and Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) has won the lowest bid for manufacturing and maintenance of 200 lightweight Vande Bharat trains.
According to information received by BLiTZ, the consortium has bid for about Rs 58,000 crore, of which the cost of manufacturing a train set is Rs 120 crore. This is an aggressive bid as the Railways had estimated that the cost of one train would be Rs 130 crore.
Five bidders in the technical round a day earlier – French rolling stock giant Alstom, Medha Servo with Swiss firm Stadtrail, German giant Siemens with state-owned BEML Ltd, Kolkata-based Titagarh Wagons with Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) and TMH RVNL was declared eligible.
The second lowest bid was from Titagarh-BHEL, which quoted the cost of manufacturing one Vande Bharat at Rs 139.8 crore. The outcome of the bid has led experts to doubt whether the winning parties will be able to execute the order.
Former General Manager of Integral Coach Factory (ICF), Chennai, Sudhanshu Mani said that for 200 Vande Bharat trains, TMH-RVNL has made the lowest financial bid and BHEL Titagarh wagons bid is the second lowest, which will delay the production of Vande Bharat on time. There is a challenge about
