India’s first engine-less semi high-speed train Vande Bharat Express or Train 18 project, which had been bogged down over vigilance issues, has now gained momentum once again. Earlier, during the tendering process of the first Train 18, the project got accused with allegations of favouritism, due to which, production of the third Train 18 unit came to a halt. Going by reports, the Integral Coach Factory (ICF), Chennai, had scrapped all existing tenders for the third rake.
But this time, ensuring transparency, Indian Railways is introducing a new tendering system allowing equal playing field to all bidders.
According to the new system, while issuing a tender, it becomes mandatory for Indian Railways production units to follow the norms of Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) – an organization that acts as a technical advisor and consultant to Indian Railways.
According to an official, the move allowing equal hands to all parties, will bring in more transparency to the field now. With this new tendering process, instead of the current three weeks, vendors can take a duration of three months to apply for bids.
Meanwhile, the second Train 18 set is ready and is likely to be inaugurated by next month. The route that has been fixed for the express train is Delhi-Katra route.
Speaking about the charge of favoritism, the Railway Ministry received nearly 25 complaints from multinational companies and vendors that a domestic private company was allegedly favoured in the procurement process for the train set’s electrical equipments.
There were a total of 18 companies who bade to supply electrical equipments for the first Train 18 rake, out of which eight were Indian companies. However only one party could make it on the last day of the tender submission, i.e., 6 February 2018, due to certain pre-bidding conditions, said sources. This enabled the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) to put the process under warn and the manufacturing of the third Train 18 set was virtually stopped with a vigilance enquiry.
But now with the introduction new transperent tendering system everything has settled down and the ICF, Chennai has been sanctioned to develop a total of 40 Vande Bharat Express train sets with in the next three years, with 10 train sets in 2019-20 and 15 train sets each in the next two years.
ICF manufactured the Train 18’s first rake in a record time of just 18 months at a cost of around Rs 97 crore.
