Indian Railways set to invite financial bids for manufacturing modern coaches

Financial bids above Rs 20,000 crore has been invited by the Railways in order to manufacture nearly 5,000 AC and non-AC coaches equipped with modern facilities and run faster than existing ones, at the Kanchrapara rail factory in West Bengal in April.

Indian railways aims to acquire 500 Electric Multiple Unit and Mainline Electric Multiple Unit coaches every year as assured offtake from the facility to make local and mainline train services faster and comfortable.

The stainless steel coaches will run faster than the existing coaches and will be equipped with automatic doors, forced ventilation system, bio-toilets, regenerative braking system and better interior design.

"We will issue the request for proposal (RFP) this month for the Kanchrapara coach factory in Bengal," said a senior Railway Ministry official. In June 2016, the Railways had sought requests for qualification (RFQ) for manufacturing 5,000 modern EMU/MEMU coaches over the next 10 years in a joint venture model.

The RFQ got a good response as Bombardier (Canada), Siemens consortium (Germany), Alstom (France), CRRC Corporation consortium (China), Stadler (Switzerland), Medha consortium (India) and BHEL, an Indian PSU, made the cut to qualify for the financial bidding. Railways will have a 26 per cent stake in the joint venture project. 

With PTI inputs