The ambitious electric loco project of the Indian Railways in Madhepura, Bihar, has finally gathered momentum after several delays. The national transporter will announce the names of shortlisted companies for the project within 15 days.
Six global infra giants-GE, Siemens, Alstom, Bombardier, CSR and CNR China are in the fray for the R1,293 crore project.
The project is being directly monitored by the PMO and is a part of the Prime Minister’s ambitious R1 lakh crore investment target in the current fiscal. ?We’ll be announcing the names of shortlisted companies soon.
Last time four companies were shortlisted for the project.? a railway ministry official said.
The fresh request for qualification (RFQ) for the projects was issued in May after the cabinet’s nod.
The factory would manufacture around 800 electronic engines in the period of 10 years.
After the shortlisting, bid documents comprising requests for proposal (RFP) or price bids would be forwarded for inter-ministerial discussion.
The railways hopes that despite procedural delay, the projects would be awarded by January next year, which is the deadline set by the PMO.
The shortlisting for the Marhowra diesel locomotive factory, the R1,300 crore project, would be done in last week of September or first week of October.
The two projects were announced in 2006 by then chief minister Lalu Prasad. These were to be set up in partnership with private players, with the railways holding 26% stake in each.
But the process couldn?t move further as issues cropped up between the railways and private players over technology transfer, assured off-take of locomotives (a demand of private players), duration of maintenance of locos by the companies and land transfer. There were allegations of favouritism towards particular private players as well.
There were also serious disagreements between the railway ministry and the Planning Commission over changes the ministry sought to make to the bid documents that had been approved by the cabinet
in 2009.Over a 10-year period, the factories would provide the railways with 800 electric locomotives of 12,000 horsepower (hp) each and a mix of 1,000 diesel locomotives of 4,500 hp and 6,000 hp with high level performance guarantees, similar to international practices.