Global majors vie for rail project

Global majors, including GE, Alstom, Bombardier and Siemens, are among firms short-listed for implementing Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee's pet project of setting up an electric locomotive assembly and ancillary unit at Dankuni under the public private partnership mode. Srinand Jha reports.

Global majors, including GE, Alstom, Bombardier and Siemens, are among firms short-listed for implementing Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee's pet project of setting up an electric locomotive assembly and ancillary unit at Dankuni under the public private partnership (PPP) mode.

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Contracts will be awarded this year and factory construction will begin early next year, Amit Mitra, chairman of the Railways expert committee on innovative financing told Hindustan Times.

Construction work began last month at a diesel loco component factory at Dankuni.

Big ticket projects, including the electric loco and diesel loco factories at Madhepura and Marhoura respectively, besides the rail coach factory at Kanchrapara in West Bengal, have also shown progress.

Early this month, eight bidders were short-listed for implementing the Kanchrapara project — which has the Railways as a 26 per cent equity partner. The short-listed firms include Alstom, Hyundai Rotem, Hitachi, Siemens and Stadler.

Bid documents for the setting up of the electric loco factory at Madhepura have been issued and final contracts are scheduled to be shortly awarded.