The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) has accepted China-based CRRC’s request to manufacture a total of 216 metro train coaches in partnership with Titagarh Wagons in Kolkata.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed on Friday puts an end to the uncertainty over the supply of coaches that is behind schedule at least by two years. The BMRCL, however, declined the CRRC’s request to increase the price.
Confirming the development, Anjum Parwez, Managing Director, BMRCL, said the MoU had been signed and added that the project cost would remain the same.
The first train might take at least a year to arrive but the supply of all coaches may take much longer than the original deadline of three years.
As per the original deadline, all the 216 coaches should have arrived by now. The BMRCL had decided to float a fresh tender for these many coaches had the Chinese firm not agreed to supply coaches as per the 2019 prices quoted by the company.
Early this year, the BMRCL had threatened to encash the bank guarantee and scrap the contract with CRRC’s subsidiary CRRC Nanjing Puzhen Co Ltd after the company, which won a Rs 1,578-crore contract in 2019, failed to set up a manufacturing plant in India. CRRC, however, approached the high court and sought more time to implement the project by citing revised Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) norms. The court had directed the BMRCL to review CRRC’s fresh proposal.
Of the 216 coaches, the BMRCL had planned to run 126 on the Green and Purple lines. The remaining 90 coaches are expected to be deployed on the 19-km RV Road-Bommasandra line. As the Chinese firm has delayed the supply of coaches, the upcoming new metro lines may run short of trains.