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Showing posts with label RFQ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RFQ. Show all posts

Friday, 19 June 2015

20:55

Large Railway MNCs queue up to make India’s High-Speed Trains

Large Railway MNCs queue up to make India’s High-Speed Trains

New Delhi: Global giants such as Bombardier, Hyundai-ROTEM, TALGO and CAF have queued up to manufacture semi high-speed train sets in India, which will be used for faster inter-city travel.

“Four multinationals have evinced interest to manufacture modern train sets in India. The successful bidder will first import two train sets and then rest would be manufactured in the country,” a senior railway board official told.

Introduction of the much awaited train sets was announced by Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu in his Rail Budget 2015-16. The cost of the project is pegged at around Rs 2,500 crore for 15 train sets. If successful, more such train sets would be ordered. Train sets are identical to Bullet trains where coaches are self-propelled and not pulled by locomotive. As a result, power is equally distributed across the system bringing down travel time substantially. However, unlike Bullet trains, these will not require dedicated tracks. These swanky trains will ply on all Rajdhani and Shatabdi routes. As per the Request for Proposal for the project, while 275 coaches will be manufactured in India, 40 would be imported.

The Request for Qualification (RFQ) was floated in May for the global manufacturers to participate in the bidding process. Bids will be opened in August for shortlisting the qualified bidders. The RFQ will be followed by financial bids and the successful bidder will be awarded the contract by December.

Two potential bidders — CAF and TALGO — are from Spain, while Bombardier is from Canada. Indian Railways has proposed to increase the speed of nine railway corridors from the existing 110 and 130 km per hour to 160 and 200 km per hour respectively so that inter-metro journeys on the Delhi-Kolkata and Delhi-Mumbai routes, for instance, can be completed overnight. After the Narendra Modil ed NDA government came to power, railways have been aggressively eyeing private investment in the sector, and the government has already cleared 100% FDI in railways infrastructure. Railways is also in process to bid out the two locomotive factories in Bihar.

Four global firms – Alstom, Siemens, GE and Bombardier – have been shortlisted for the proposed electric locomotive factory at Madhepura. Two multinationals, GE and EMD, are vying to bag the diesel locomotive plant at Marhorah. The estimated cost of the loco factories is about Rs 1,200 crore each. The projects are expected to be awarded by the end of this year.
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Friday, 22 May 2015

08:36

Web-based bidding system for station redevelopment project

New Delhi: Railways will opt for web-based bidding system for involvement of private players in upgrading of stations across the country.

“The existing stations were constructed almost a century ago and are congested now. Population have increased since then and we have to expand stations to provide better amenities,” Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said here today.

Prabhu said the entire process involving private participation in station redevelopment scheme will be transparent.

“We will soon come out with RFQ (request for quotation) for station development. We have identified six/seven stations for it and work will be taken up for two stations at first. It will be a web-based tendering system,” he said.

Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement that stations should provide airport like facilities, Prabhu said railway stations have more footfalls than airport.

“Whatever revenue we will earn through redevelopment it will be ploughed back for passenger amenities,” he said.

Asked why new trains were not announced in the Rail Budget this time, Prabhu maintained that he is not averse to launching new train but addition of more trains will choke the routes further.

New train should run but no new announcement, he said and added, “Our main trunk routes between Delhi and Mumbai and between Delhi and Kolkata are heavily congested. The Delhi-Kolkata route passes through Bihar and UP.”

Prabhu also mentioned the over-congestion in the Allahabad-Mughal Sarai section in Delhi-Kolkata route.

The route is already occupied by two times more than its capacity and even a small asset failure has huge effect on the route delaying several trains for hours, the minister said.

He said that the railways is currently reviewing the requirement to minimise the impact of asset failure.

“We have received requests from all our MPs about the new trains and the review process is on,” he said.

Prabhu also mentioned about the launching of customer portal service for registering complaints and suggestions.

“We have launched a customer portal where one can register complaints and give suggestion,” he said.

Asked on the possibilities of running bullet train in the country, Prabhu said there is a requirement for high speed train but time line cannot be given at this stage.

Feasibility studies are on for running bullet train on Mumbai-Ahmedabad and Delhi-Chennai routes. While Japan is involved in Mumbai-Ahmedabad section, China is doing it in the Delhi-Chennai route.

“We will take further step only after the feasibility reports are submitted,” he said.

However, Prabhu said efforts are on to increase the speed of Rajdhnai, Shatabdi and other Mail/Express trains.

Hoping that improvement in railways will be seen in the next ten years, Prabhu concluded his speech saying “do your best and forget the best.”


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