The Indian Railways has floated a fresh tender for domestic manufacturers for the procurement of Vande Bharat Express or Train 18 to source 44 train sets. This is for the fourth time that the national transporter has floated a tender for these trains, after the previous three tenders were derailed.
The Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai has floated the tender and the date of opening of tenders will be November 11. A pre-bid meeting in this regard is expected to take place on September 29. The fresh tender will have provisions to manufacture Vande Bharat Train Sets at all the three production units of Indian Railways -- including ICF, Modern Coach Factory and Rail Coach Factory. The current tender is In line with the government's preference for Make In India policy, with the minimum local content percentage kept at 75 per cent.
This will be the first big tender under revised government norms under Atma Nirbhar Bharat. The bidding process involves a two-stage process. The first stage includes technical bids, while the second stage includes financial bids.
The third tender was cancelled last month after some technical issues were found in the bidding process. The third tender for 43 train sets was floated in December. During the third round, some companies revealed financial bid details in the first stage of technical bids, leading to the cancellation of the entire tendering process.
Although bids for 43 Train 18 sets were invited first, orders for only three sets were given – one to Spanish major CAF and Medha Group that supplied for the first Vande Bharat Train.
Following this, a second tender was floated for 37 Train 18 propulsion systems that were cancelled. Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal had earlier said there was a plan to have 100 such train sets, after the launch of the first indigenous semi-high speed train set Vande Bharat Express from New Delhi to Varanasi on February 15 last year. The train was showcase product under Make in India since it has around 80 per cent indigenous components.