Semi-high speed Vande Bharat trains are running in many parts of the country. But the plan to run Vande Bharat train on all long routes in the country has suffered a major setback. In fact, the government cancelled the contract worth Rs 30,000 crore to manufacture Vande Bharat Express trains. As per the plan, a target of manufacturing 100 Vande Bharat trains was set. But Indian Railways cancelled this contract even before the tendering was completed. In such a situation, the speed of execution of the plan has been slowed down. Let us know why this happened…
The matter is worth 30 billion rupees.
Vande Bharat Scheme has suffered a major setback due to cancellation of this tender by Railways. Railways had signed the contract to manufacture 100 Vande Bharat trains for Rs 30,000 crore. For this, many companies filed complaints and talks with French company Alstom India had reached the final stage. Later, there was no agreement between the two on the money and Railways has withdrawn the tender.
Oliver Lewison, managing director of Alstom India, the company that negotiated the tender to build Vande Bharat, told Moneycontrol that there was a problem with the money offered in the tender. Talks were on to make the Vande Bharat train with aluminium body, but Indian Railways cancelled its tender. We could have thought of reducing this price in the future, but the Railways cancelled the tender.
Deal stalled here
Railway officials say the French side had demanded Rs 150.9 crore per tonne as the tender price. It was a very high price and we had talked about raising it to Rs 140 crore. However, under pressure from the Railways, Alstom had also talked about finalising the deal for Rs 145 crore. The company had talked about finalising it for Rs 30,000 crore and had promised to manufacture 100 Vande Bharat Rex at the same price. Prior to this, the tender to manufacture each coach of the Vande Bharat Sleeper Train for Rs 120 crore was also finalised.
The railway official said that the cancellation of this tender will help the railways to evaluate its price. Also, the bidding companies will get a chance to know about their projects and bids. Next time too, we will include more companies in the tender so that if competition increases, the cost will come down. This time only two bidders participated. According to the tender, Rs 13 billion would be given for the delivery of the rake and Rs 17 billion for its maintenance for the next 35 years.
