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Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts

Friday, 23 October 2015

09:04

Iran likely to award Electric Rail plan to Russia

Iran likely to award Electric Rail plan to Russia

Tehran: Iran said on Thursday that it plans to award a project worth $1.2 billion to Russia to establish an electric train service to connect the north to a key city east of capital Tehran.
Abbas Akhundi, Iran’s minister of roads and urban development, told reporters that the train service will start in Garmsar in eastern Tehran and will lead to the border town of Incheh Borun in the northeastern Golestan province.

Akhundi said a proposal to establish the train service was raised during a meeting with the Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak who is visiting Tehran, IRNA reported.

He further said that Iran had introduced a total of 121 projects that are collectively worth €25 billion to the Russian delegation.

Akhundi said the projects mainly concerned road, railway and maritime transportation development plans.

The implementation of those projects, the Iranian minister added, will open a new chapter in relations between the two countries.

Novak, for his part, described Iran’s projects as important and expressed hope that satisfactory results would be obtained for both Tehran and Moscow in discussions over them.

The Russian minister, heading a 50-member delegation, arrived in Tehran on Wednesday to discuss joint economic projects.

Mahmoud Vaezi, Iran’s minister of communications and information technology, told reporters after meeting Novak that Moscow has pledged to issue a credit line of $5 billion for joint projects with Iran.

Vaezi, who is a co-chairman of the Iran-Russian joint economic commission, said the credit line is expected to usher in a new era in Iran-Russia economic relations.
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Monday, 24 August 2015

06:33

Russian Gas Locomotive passes Acceptance Tests

Russian Gas Locomotive passes Acceptance Tests

A gas-powered shunting locomotive built by Bryansk Engineering Plant – a subsidiary of Transmashholding – has successfully completed acceptance trials.

An initial order of 50 TEM19 locomotives has now been placed following testing at the Egorshino Depot of RZD Ekaterinburg Equipment Division.

Created by VNIKTI and BMZ, the TEM19 is fitted with a gas reciprocating engine, which the manufacturer says will help reduce energy consumption by up to 20 per cent a year.

The modular vehicle has an integrated driver’s cab module, cryogenic system with gas conditioning and LNG feeding systems, engine generator set, cooling system, hardware cabinet, electric dynamic brake and compressor unit.
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Tuesday, 7 July 2015

12:11

China’s Unified Bullet-Train Standards expected to be adopted by over 30 Countries

China’s Unified Bullet-Train Standards expected to be adopted by over 30 Countries

Recently, Chinese Unified Bullet-Train Standards, with the speed of 350 kilometers per hour and completely independent intellectual property rights, officially started trials in the eastern suburbs of Beijing. The trials mark the impressive progress that research on the Chinese Unified Bullet-Train Standards has made thus far.

Journalists of the People’s Daily learned that based on Chinese national standards,industrial standards, and CRC (China Railway Corporation) standards, the “Chinese Unified Bullet-Train Standards” is especially designed for railway operating environment and standards in China. Abiding by principles such as safety, reliability, trains with Unified Bullet-Train Standards are more comfortable and environmental friendly. For example, there is more space between seats, multiple lighting models, free WiFi access,and watch and reserve facilities for large pieces of baggage.

Chinese high-end manufacturing industries like high-speed rail and nuclear energy are now rapidly expanding on the world market, as “Chinese industry standards become the world standard.” This February, the country’s first design specification standards for high-speed railways were implemented. China is devoted to promoting the standards to other countries that import Chinese high-speed rail like Malaysia, Singapore, India, and Russia etc. In the future, more than 30 countries including Iran, the US, Venezuela are also expected to adopt the “Chinese standard.”

The “Chinese standard” now is quickly heading worldwide. In the future, there will be more Chinese standardized bullet trains to replace the old models, running around the world.
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Thursday, 18 June 2015

20:20

Russia to engage with India for development of High-speed Railway Network

Russia to engage with India for development of High-speed Railway Network

India and Russia are in talks for its high-speed train network plans in India after the latter showed interest for a tie-up, a top railway official said here. Vladimir Yakunin, president of Russian Railways , said they were keen to tie up with Indian Railways for the planned high-speed rail links, as the country has expertise in this area.

Yakunin, who was talking to journalists on the sidelines of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, said that India and Russia had a relationship in technological matters, both defence and civilian, and this is likely to continue in the future.

He said earlier he had himself held discussion at top level with Indian politicians and officials on improving the signalling and safety infrastructure in India, so that the accidents happening on the Indian Railways network could be avoided.

Yakunin told that the Russian Railways had some of the most advanced systems in place in these two areas, “but for some reason, there was no finalisation even after several rounds of talks two years ago”.

Yakunin, who has led the Russian Railways for the last 10 years, said discussions with Indian officials took place recently for a high-speed rail project in India, and “hopefully, something concrete should emerge soon”.

He said Russia already has several high-speed rail links and has plans to set up over 4,000 km of lines which can run trains at 400 km an hour. In addition, around 7,000 km of fast lines would be built that will be capable of running trains at 140 km to 200 km per hour.

Russian Railways is spread over 85,000 km and has 1.3 million employees. It carries around one billion passengers a year and 1.2 billion tonnes of freight, fourth highest in the world behind the US, China and India.
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Saturday, 13 June 2015

07:11

Chennai Metro to invoke ₹77 Crore Bank Guarantee given by Mosmetrostroy to settle the dues of sub-contractors

Chennai Metro to invoke RS.77 Crore Bank Guarantee given by Mosmetrostroy to settle the dues of sub-contractors

Chennai (MAS): More sub-contractors who have supplied construction material for Chennai Metro Rail project are planning to seek legal remedy to recover their dues from Mosmetrostroy, a Russian company which handles the tunnelling contract for the project.

Mosmetrostroy, in partnership with an Indian company, Gammon, was awarded two contracts totalling ₹1,947 crore for building 19 underground stations and 18 km of associated tunnels for Chennai Metro.

Bank Guarantee

Chennai Metro can invoke bank guarantee to the tune of ₹77 crore given by Mosmetrostroy to settle the dues of sub-contractors of the Russian company. However, for this, an order from the Madras High Court is necessary.

Madhiazhagan, who is among five petitioners said when the matter came up for hearing on Monday, the Court wanted to know whether Gammon and CMRL had any objection to the invoices raised. They did not have any objection, and have, in fact, endorsed the invoices, he said. The sub-contractors first approached the Commissioner of Police and then CMRL to recover their dues. They also approached the Russian Consulate to bring back the officials to start the project, but in vain, he said.

100 vendors left in lurch

However, Mosmetrostroy stopped work last month after Chennai Metro Rail declined to accept its demand for cost escalation.

Gammon handles the construction of underground stations that’s going on.

R Madhiazhagan, Vice-President, Chennai Vendor Association, who represents the sub-contractors, said over a 100 sub-contractors who supplied sand, cement and brick, bolts and steel bars have been left in the lurch with payment dues of over ₹30 crore.

Sources said five vendors have filed petitions on Monday seeking a direction from the Court to help them recover the dues, and the rest will approach the court in a day or two.
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Tuesday, 2 June 2015

13:10

Ratan Tata headed Kayakalp Council to Benchmark Indian Railways against 4 Global Giants

Ratan Tata headed Kayakalp Council to Benchmark Indian Railways against 4 Global Giants

New Delhi: The Ratan Tata-headed innovation council formed by rail minister Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu has decided to benchmark Indian Railways against the train networks of four global giants – US, China, Russia and Germany.

The idea is to compare financial and operational performance indicators and work out a strategy for turning around Railways by using the best-suited model of innovation and development.

The council has asked the railway board for inputs on the railway systems operating in the four countries. The council held its first meeting on May 13 with Prabhu, Minister of State (MoS) Railways Manoj Sinha, Railway Board Chairman A K Mital, other board members and trade union representatives.

“It was decided in the meeting that the performance position of a few foreign railways including the US, Germany, Russia and China will be collected for the purpose of comparison and carrying out further analysis by the innovation council. The second meeting would be held then,” said an official privy to the developments.

India is similar to the nations on the list — except for Germany — in being a member of the 1-billion tonne freight club. India, the US, Russia and China are the only four countries in the world which carry more than a billion tonnes of freight on their railway networks annually.

However, India lags far behind the other nations in terms of structural and operational reforms, particularly in the freight segment. The US, China, Germany and Russia have already adopted significant degrees of privatisation and corporatisation of their railways over the past decades.

Of the two countries with railway systems most comparable to India, the US and China, the US has traditionally had a privately owned rail freight operations system. China has had a departmental system historically but has now progressively reorganised its structure to the point where there is now no Ministry of Rail. It has a national rail corporation and a number of regional operators and specialised private railway operators especially in dedicated freight haulage.

While Indian Railways’ efficiency indicators have improved over time, they are still low when compared to global benchmarks. For example, traffic unit (addition of net tonne km or NTKM and passenger km or PKM) per employee is 0.84 for India compared to 1.4 for China, 2.0 for Russia and 15.1 for the US .

According to Indian Railways’ recently released white paper, NTKM per employee is 1.81 million in Russia, 1.23 million in China and 0.44 million in India. Similarly, PKM per employee is 0.15 million in Russia, 0.38 million in China and 0.66 million in India. This indicates how India fares better on the passenger indicator and worse on freight performance.

“There is a rich experience from other countries in creating competition and India has a great deal to learn from it, particularly as it is one of the last countries to restructure,” the Bibek Debroy committee on restructuring of the railway board and mobilisation of funds for Indian Railways said in its draft report submitted recently.

In the US, 28 per cent of the railways’ revenue goes into labour costs and 20 per cent is channelised to source fuel. For comparison, in India, 32 per cent of operating revenue goes into staff wages while fuel costs eat up 18 per cent of earnings. The two nations are also similar in earning 40-45 per cent of freight earnings from coal transport alone.

Also, in the US the private companies fund a great majority of their own infrastructure capital investment projects from customers on a commercial basis. While the Federal Railroad Administration makes capital grants, the total amounts are minor compared to commercial funding raised by the private freight railroads themselves. For comparison, Indian Railways continues to source over 40 per cent of its Plan Budget of ~1 lakh crore as support from the Centre.
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Monday, 25 May 2015

11:12

50 Cities to get Metro Rails for Rs.500000 Crore

50 Cities to get Metro Rails for Rs.500000 Crore

New Delhi: The government has finalised a plan to augment and launch mass rapid transportation systems across 50 cities to minimise commuter woes and ease pollution concerns.

Prime minister Narendra Modi has already cleared a proposal put up by the ministry of urban development, estimated to cost Rs 500,000 crore over the next four to six years. The Union government plans to share the cost of implementing the project with the respective state governments through special purpose vehicles.

And official in the prime minister’s office, who is not permitted to identify himself, said that prospective partners from South Korea, China, Japan, Germany, France, Russia and Canada have evinced interest in participating in the project.

“Every metro rail system would be very important, given our plan to build 100 smart cities and ensure environmentally sustainable transportation facilities,” the official said.

Modi is learnt to have specially discussed the metro rail projects with CEOs of top Chinese companies in Shanghai and Korean firms in Seoul during his recent visit to both the countries.

Most of the metro rail projects would be implemented through special purpose vehicles (SPVs) in which both state governments and the centre would have equity stakes. While most JVs are being planned as 50:50 ventures, certain innovations are also expected in some of the new projects where municipal corporations have expressed their desire to join the proposed SPVs as equity partners.

Already, some 13 metro projects have either been completed or are in various stages of completion. These include networks in Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Che­n­nai, Jaipur, Mumbai (both metro, monorail), Kolkata and Kochi.

Tier-II cities like Lucknow, Kanpur, Gurgaon, Patna, Ahmedabad, Surat, Indore, Nagpur and Coimbatore have also been identified for setting up dedicated metro networks, while proposals are being evaluated for Chandigarh, Bhopal, Ludhiana and Kozikode.

A joint venture between Russia’s Mosmetrostroy and Gammon India has been implementing the Chennai corridor that is expected to be operational in the next few months and is likely to be inaugurated by chief minister J Jayalalithaa who returned to office on Saturday.

The Hyderabad metro, where Larsen & Turbo is the main concessionaire, is reportedly on schedule and is likely to roll out by October.

The latest to join the proposed list is Vijayawada with a link to Amaravathi, the new state capital of Andhra Pradesh, with an investment of Rs 6,823 crore. Delhi Metro’s founding honcho E Sreedharan is overseeing the project.

“Cities wanting to set up metro rail projects may have to compete and come up with innovative and compelling proposals,” the PMO official quoted earlier said.

Several innovations are being planned for implementing mass rapid corridors in different cities. For example, project authorities in Nagpur have been evaluating the possibility of running the network on solar power. Nagpur metro, where both French and German agencies have been in the reckoning, is looking at cost-effective project financing, both through equity and debt.

According to preliminary projections, at least 40 per cent of the required power for operating the system would be sourced from dedicated solar power plants. Land acquisition for the project has commenced earlier this month.
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