Five global firms bid to supply 200 lightweight Vande Bharat trains to Indian Railways

New Delhi, India (Urban Transport News): Indian Railways has recently opened the technical bids for Rs 76,000 crore rolling stock contract floated for design, manufaturing & supply of 200 lightweight next-generation Vande Bharat trains in India.

According to information shared, five multinational Rolling Stock fims/consortias namely Alstom Transport, Medha Servo Drives Pvt. Ltd with Swiss company Stadler Rail, Titagarh Wagons Ltd. with BHEL, Siemens Ltd. with BEML and Transmashholding (TMH) with Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL) have submitted their bids to manufacture 200 lightweight Vande Bharat trains for the Indian Railways in the next three years.

This contract involves the provision of 200 trains that encompass design, production, testing, and commissioning, in addition to a 35-year maintenance agreement. The entire project is anticipated to be finalized within the next 3-4 years.

The closure of the technical bids for the mega tender kickstarts the process of rolling out 400 Vande Bharat trains over the next three years, as announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Union Budget 2023 speech.

"It would take 18-24 months for the Railways to procure the first prototype from the manufacturers. According to the tender document, these trains will be manufactured at railway production units in Latur and Chennai," said an official.

The estimated value of this contract package is Rs 72,000 crore, implying that the cost to manufacture one 16-coach trainset of Vande Bharat Train is Rs 130 crore. The tender was floated earlier this year, and three extensions were given to prospective bidders.

The technical evaluation committee will examine the proposals made by the five bidders/consortia, after which the process will move to financial bids, where the bidder with the lowest bid will be selected to manufacture these trains. Sources said that the Railway ministry is likely to award the contract to multiple entities, wants to ensure that serial production of these trains begins as early as possible.

So far, ten sets of Vande Bharat Express trains have been introduced on various routes of Indian Railways network. The latest tender will also take the Railways one step closer to introducing sleeper-class Vande Bharat Express trains, an announcement Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw made recently. The sleeper version of the train is likely to have a different interior design.

Currently, Vande Bharat trains are running solely with a seating facility, which limits their ability to undertake long-distance journeys. While production of these trains would be expedited, there are questions about how the Railways plans to deal with speed restrictions slowing the train down and safety risks to its frontal nose panel.

Apart from this, only two firms Alstom Transport and Medha Servo Drives - Stadler Rail JV have submitted their bids for another contract for supply and manufacturing of 100 alumimium body sleeper version lightweight Vande Bharat trains to the Indian Railways.