Keen on presenting an investor-friendly picture of Indian Railways in Rail Budget 2012-13, railway minister Dinesh Trivedi has directed his officials to award long pending locomotive projects in Bihar, costing more than Rs 60,000 crore, by February.
The direction was given at a meeting between Trivedi and railway board chairman and members on November 15 to review the development on two proposed engine manufacturing factories at Madhepura and Marhaura in Bihar.
Contracts for setting up the two units and supplying engines manufactured there to Indian Railways are pending since last four years due to bureaucratic delays. Union cabinet had cleared a diesel locomotive project at Marhaura in 2006 and an electric engine factory in the following year.
Last year, railways had shortlisted five bidders namely GE, Siemens, Alstom, Bombardier and ElectroMotive Diesel for financial bidding for the two units.
However, financial bidding was postponed a dozen times as railways took on the task of redoing bidding documents for the projects.
Railway ministry officials said they have finalised changes in the bidding papers now and is likely to come out with a cabinet note on the same by the end of this month. A fresh cabinet approval is required as railways is changing key provisions in the documents.
?The minister was worried about deterioration in railways’ image as a non-investor friendly organisation and wanted a correction,? a senior official of Rail Bhawan, who is privy to developments of the meeting, told FE on the condition of anonymity.
Railways has proposed changes in key provisions pertaining to lease of land, technology transfer and price variation clause. The period of land lease is cut from 50 years to 30 years while the right to maintain locomotives has been curtailed to 250 engines only. The balance locomotives would be maintained by railways and for that technology would be transferred by the private sector.
Another important change is price escalation clause. Railways wants to increase fixed component in the price of locomotives from 15% to 20%.
The changes would be discussed with the shortlisted bidders at a pre-bid meeting likely in December, sources said.
In the last few years, railways created a queue of projects for award to private firms, but everything?from the locomotive factories mentioned above to coach factories at Kanchrapara in West Bengal and Palakkad in Kerala, and engine component unit at Dankuni in West Bengal?got stuck.