Railways award contract of ₹2211 crore for manufacturing 44 Vande Bharat rakes

The Indian Railways has finalized its tender for 44 rakes of Vande Bharat trains with 16 cars each and awarded the contract worth ₹2211 crore to Hyderabad-based Medha Servo Drives Ltd, the railway ministry announced on Friday.

These rakes will be manufactured at three production units of the railways; 24 rakes at the Integral Coach Factory, Chennai, 10 rakes at the Rail Coach Factory at Kapurthala and the balance 10 rakes at Modern Coach Factory, Raebareli. The procurement includes a five-year comprehensive annual maintenance contract with the supplier.

“Indian Railways has finalised the tender for Design, Development, Manufacture, Supply, Integration, Testing and Commissioning of IGBT based 3-Phase Propulsion, Control and Other Equipment for Train Sets (Vande Bharat Type Train sets) for 44 Rakes of 16 Cars each on January 21, 2021,” the ministry announced.

“The specifications were prepared after multiple deliberations with the industry at various levels for manufacturing the train sets indigenously. For the first time, the tender required minimum 75% local content requirement of the total value of the tender. This is expected to give a boost to the “AtmaNirbhar Bharat” mission. In this tender, 3 bidders participated and the lowest offer was from indigenous manufacturer M/s Medha Servo Drives Ltd. who successfully met the minimum local content of 75% of the total value,” it added.

According to the delivery schedule for supply of these rakes – the first 2 prototype rakes will be delivered in 20 months, thereafter on successful commissioning; the firm will be delivering an average of 6 rakes per quarter.

In August 2020, the Indian Railways cancelled its global tender issued for manufacturing 44 sets of semi-high speed Vande Bharat trains, the ministry of railways announced late on Friday.

The move came after Chinese joint venture company CRRC Pioneer Electric (India) Private Limited emerged as the only foreign bidder for the global tender floated for manufacturing 44 rakes of Vande Bharat trains in July.

The JV was established jointly by China-based CRRC Yongji Electric Co. Ltd. and Gurugram-based Pioneer Fil-med Private Limited in 2015.

Indian Railways’ Integral Coach Factory, Chennai had floated a tender for manufacturing 44 rakes or train sets of semi-high speed Vande Bharat trains on July 10, 2020.

The other five bidders then included state-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, Bharat Industries, Sangrur, Electrowaves Electronics (P) Ltd, MEDHA Servo Drives Private Limited, Powernetics Equipment India Private Limited, according to the railway ministry.

The ambitious ‘Make in India’ project involves the manufacturing of 44 train sets comprising 16 coaches each for Vande Bharat.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had flagged off the maiden run of a Vande Bharat train on the New Delhi-Varanasi route on February 15, 2019. The second such train service between New Delhi and Shri Mata Vaishnodevi Katra was flagged off by home minister Amit Shah on October 3, 2019.