New Delhi: The Indian Railways’ decision to cancel French rolling stock giant Alstom’s Rs 30,000 crore tender for the manufacture and maintenance of 100 aluminium-body Vande Bharat sleeper train sets due to the high cost — Rs 150.99 crore per train set — will jeopardise the national transporter’s plan to adopt lighter, energy-efficient aluminium trains. This move is also likely to further delay the rollout of the much-anticipated Vande Bharat sleeper trains.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had earlier announced the roll out of the first Vande Bharat sleeper train by March 2024. So far, not a single Vande Bharat sleeper train has been rolled out yet. All the ones operational are the chair car ones.
In June this year, the minister announced that the first Vande Bharat sleeper train is near completion and will be on track by August. The train set for this train is manufactured by state-owned Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) at its rail unit in Bengaluru. The minister added that Indian Railways aims to deploy approximately 250 units of Vande Bharat sleeper trains by 2029.
Also, the Alstom contract, once completed, would have been the first such fleet of IR’s aluminium body passenger trains. The railways were, till now, producing only stainless-steel body train sets. It was only in October 2023 that Vaishnaw launched India’s first aluminium freight rake.
While industry experts anticipate a further delay in roll out of sleeper trains due to the cancellation of Alstom order, IR expects trials of the stainless-steel sleeper train to begin this month.
Aluminium trainsets, though expensive compared to stainless steel ones, are light, capable of achieving high speed, require low maintenance and are energy efficient. For instance, Alstom’s aluminium trainsets would have had a design speed of up to 220 km/hour.
Senior officials in the railway ministry said that Alstom’s bid was cancelled late last year on the ground that the bid cost was “expensive” following months of price negotiations. Alstom was declared the lowest bidder in May last year. The railways wanted Alstom to scale down the Rs 150 crore bid price, but the French infrastructure company expressed its inability to go below Rs 145 crore.
The officials cited how last year a joint venture between railway PSU, Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) and Russian company Transmashholding (TMH) won the bid to manufacture and maintain 120 steel-bodied Vande Bharat sleeper train sets at Rs 120 crore per train set.
A senior railway ministry official, who did not want to be named, said that IR will not issue a fresh tender for aluminium body Vande Bharat trains. “As of now, indigenous models will be used,” the official said.
The second lowest bidder after Alstom was Hyderabad based Medha Servo Drives, which had quoted a bid price of Rs 169 crore per train.
In response to queries from ThePrint, Alstom, in an emailed statement, said that the company’s offer for the 100 aluminium EMU’s was a “very competitive offer”, and the lowest when benchmarked against similar trains produced globally.
“With a 220 kmph design speed, the manufacturing of these state-of-the-art aluminium trains requires substantial initial investments in the product design, being the first such product for the Indian market. It also involves the creation of a local supply chain and ecosystem to make India completely self-reliant in the production of such trains in line with the ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat vision,” the statement read.
The company further said that while being the lowest bidder, Alstom worked on Indian Railways’ request to further optimise its offer. “Alstom strongly believes that aluminium-based trains will lead India into the future of efficient and sustainable rail mobility. With its strong local knowledge and its investments in industrial and human capital over the years, the company is well-positioned and committed to support the realisation of this vision. Alstom is already advanced in the development of this product for the Indian market which promises the nation a highly safe, comfortable, efficient and reliable passenger train and looks forward to any new tenders that may come up in this space.”
The train sets were to be manufactured at the new Integral Coach Factory (ICF) at Sonepat.
One of the railway officials told ThePrint that as per the tender, Alstom was to manufacture 100 trainsets in the next seven years and maintain them for a 35-year period.
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Delay in roll out of sleeper trains
The cancellation of the Alstom bid may slow down the roll out of the Vande Bharat sleeper trains.
The first sleeper Vande Bharat was supposed to be rolled out by March this year. This deadline has been pushed back further, with the IR not setting out a new timeline for the roll out.
Besides Alstom, the RVNL-TMH joint venture won the bid to manufacture and maintain 120 stainless steel trainsets at a cost of Rs 120 crore per train in 7 years. The 120 trainsets are being manufactured at Marathwada Rail Coach factory in Latur, Maharashtra.
Bids for manufacturing another 80 Vande Bharat stainless steel sleeper train sets by 2029 were won by a consortium of Titagarh Rail Systems Limited and state-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) at a cost of Rs 120 crore per train set. The total value of the contract is Rs 24,000 crore. They will be assembled at ICF, Chennai, one of the railway officials told ThePrint.
The initial fleet of sleeper train sets will run on selected routes including Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah.
Besides the sleeper trains, there has been a slowdown in the production of new Vande Bharat chair cars too.
In the 2022-23 budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced that 400 new generation Vande Bharat trains, including chair cars and sleeper trains, will be developed during the next three years. But so far, ICF Chennai has developed a total of 75 trainsets, which are operational.
Besides, ICF has developed 12-14 more Vande Bharat train sets and handed them over to the Indian Railways. “The railways plans to launch the new Vande Bharat train sets in different routes within the first 100 days of the Modi government coming to power for a third term in June 2024,” a second railway official said.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhari)
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