State-owned BEML has bagged a contract worth Rs 3,015 crore for the Mumbai Metro corridor. The public sector company was the lowest among seven bidders and will manufacture 378 metro cars for the Mumbai Metro Corridors 2A, 2B and 7. Other bidders were Alstom, Bombardier, CAF, CRRC, Titagarh, Hyundai Rotem.
“The state-of-art, driver-less trains shall be manufactured indigenously by BEML. Supply of trains will begin from October 2020 and be completed by December 2022,” a government statement said.
BEML earlier supplied metro coaches in smaller numbers, but along with an international player as a JV partner. It has now sub-contracted Hitachi only for some designs. Coaches will be manufactured at the BEML factory in Bengaluru.
The project is being assisted by the Asian Development Bank and the procurement has been done following its guidelines and concurrence.
Metro line 2A will connect Dahisar to DN Nagar. Metro line 2B will run further from DN Nagar to Mankhurd via Bandra, and Metro line 7 from Dahisar to Andheri (East).
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has standardised specifications for metro rolling stock, signalling, telecom, electrical and civil components. The government has stipulated that a minimum of 75% of coaches procured against any tender have to be manufactured in India.
“As a result of the Make in India initiatives, the last two big procurement orders for rolling stock in India, floated on the international competitive bidding model, have gone to Indian companies. This has also resulted in substantial reduction in cost,” the release said.
Currently, about 536 km of metro lines are operational in 10 different cities namely – Delhi-NCR (317 km), Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Jaipur, Kochi, Lucknow, Mumbai and Gurugram.
In addition, more than 650 km of metro rail projects are under construction in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, Kochi, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Pune, Bhopal and Indore.