Siemens, Hitachi among ten in fray for Rs 471-crore DFC project after China firm’s exit

The project involves installation of signalling systems in 417 km of railway line in the Kanpur-Deen Dayal Upadhyay section.

By Nivedita Mukherjee

Ten companies including Siemens and Hitachi have expressed interest in the signalling and telecommunication project on the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor being implemented by Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation India. Fresh auctions were conducted for the project after DFCCIL terminated a Rs 471 crore contract given earlier to a Chinese company (China Railway Signal and Communication) in July.

The project involves installation of signalling systems in 417 km of railway line in the Kanpur-Deen Dayal Upadhyay section. The contract was called off on the grounds of ‘poor progress”, following the face-off between India and China at the Galwan Valley in the east of Ladakh.

The DFCs comprising the Eastern and Western corridors is one of the largest rail infrastructure projects being undertaken by the government at an overall cost of Rs 81,459 crore.

The 10 companies which have expressed interest in completing the unfinished work of Kanpur-Deen Dayal Upadhyay section are L&T Ecc, RCIL, Siemens, Kyoson, MRT Signal, Hitachi Rail STS, Baba Pvt Ltd, Kalpataru, Texmeco and KEC.

“On 9 September we took all the 10 stakeholders for a tour of the stretch to take stock of the balance S&T work,” a spokesperson of DFCCL told FE. “They made a detailed assessement of the amount of work that has been done, what has to be done and how it is to be done. The last date for the submission of bids is 14 September,” he added.

The scope of the work involves designing, supplying, constructing, testing and commissioning the signalling, telecommunications and associated works in this section of the Railway which is a part of the Eastern corridor and the contract was awarded in June 2016.

The EDFC is 1,840 km long and extends from Ludhiana to Kolkata. The Chinese firm had completed only 20 % of the work in the four years since the contract was awarded in 2016 and the project was to be completed by December 2020.