MNCs in Race To Bid For High-Speed Trains in India

BENGALURU: As the high-speed train sets in India, global giants and manufacturers like Bombardier, Hyundai, ROTEM, TALGO and CAF are wooing the Indian government to get the for India’s biggest rail project for faster inter-city travel.

A senior railway board official told ET that, "four multinationals have evinced interest to manufacture modern train sets in India. The successful bidder will first import two train sets and then the rest would be manufactured in the country.”

As put forth by Railway Minister in his Rail Budget—2015-16, the anticipated cost for 15 train sets is pegged at around 2,500 Cr after which more sets would be ordered depending upon the quality. The catch here is these train sets are similar to coaches of bullet trains which are self propelled and not pulled by locomotive. Self propelled coaches substantially reduce the travel time and these trains will swiftly ply on the Rajdhani and Shatabdi routes too.

The Request for Qualification was given out in May and the bids are open for the multinationals and other bidders till August. The successful bidder will be awarded the contract by December.

Besides the manufacturing bids, Indian Railways has proposed to increase the speed of nine railway corridors from the existing 110 and 130 km per hour to 160 and 200 km per hour respectively so that inter-metro journeys on the Delhi-Kolkata and Delhi-Mumbai routes, can be completed overnight.

The onset of Modi led government which is eager to let private investors into the industry is now about to bid out two locomotive factories in Bihar following the clearance for 100 percent FDI in Railways infrastructure.  

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