Indian Railways cancels tender for manufacturing of 44 new Semi High Speed Trains

New Delhi, India (Urban Transport News): On Friday, manufacturing tender for 44 Semi High Speed Vande Bharat Express got cancelled. According to the Indian Railways the tender was cancelled after the Chinese joint venture was shortlisted and won the project.

On 10th July, Chennai based Railways Integral Coach Factory offered a tender to manufacture 44 Semi High speed Vande Bharat Express trains.

Moreover, the exact reason of cancelling the project is not specified yet from the side of the Railways.

According to the Railway Board Chairman VK Yadav, the tender was cancelled due to revealing prices in the technical bids by some of the bidders.

He added "Revealing of prices is one of the reasons why tender for 44 Vande Bharat trains was cancelled. The new tender will be as per Make in India guidelines and will be invited within a week,"

However, reports are saying that this project got cancelled because the Chinese company was the only foreign bidder since the tender was floated for this project.

According to the Ministry, a fresh tender is going to be released within a week with a preference to Make in India order.

On Friday, the Railway Ministry tweeted "Tender has been cancelled for 44 Semi High Speed Vande Bharat Express trains. And a new tender will be floated within a week as per Revised Public Procurement order."

As said by the Ministry, for the supply of electrical equipment and other materials for 44 trains, Chinese company was the only foreign bidder among the 6 local players including BHEL, MEDHA Servo drives and others.

In 2019, the first train 18 was launched at an expense of Rs 100 crore. And there are estimations that 44 train's propulsion system alone will be worth around Rs. 1500 crores.

There are going to have 16 coaches in each of the Semi High speed Vande Bharat Express trains.