Vande Bharat Express: Indian Railways likely to scrap Chinese joint venture bids

Indian Railways is likely to disqualify Chinese-Indian joint venture company CRRC Pioneer Electric Pvt Limited, which bid to build semi high speed Vande Bharat Express train.

Chennai-based Indian Railway's Integral Coach Factory, December 2019 had invited global tender for procuring propulsion systems or electric traction kits for 44 trains to function as the Vande Bharat Express, which is also dubbed as Train-18 project.

When bids were opened on Friday, total six companies have participated which are : CRRC Pioneer Electric Pvt Limited, Gurugram, BHEL, New Delhi; Bhatat Industries, Sanger; Electrowaves Electronics Pvt Ltd, Parwanoo; Medha Servo Drives Pvt Ltd, Hyderabad and Powernetrics Equipment Pvt Ltd, Navi Mumbai.

The only foreign player participated in the Rs 1400 crore project is Chinese and Indian joint venture CRRC Pioneer Electric Pvt Limited. China state owned rolling stock company CRRC Yongji Electric Co. Ltd. and Gurugram-based firm formed a joint venture in 2015.

The next course of action will be award the contract after technical evaluation of each bid.

Amid hightented tensions between India and China over violent face-offf between two armies in Eastern Ladakh, the national tranaporter is likely to scrap Chinese-Indian joint venture company bids as per Make in India guidelines, said an official in railways.

According to the guidelines, the nodal ministry can exclude any of bidder, if it satisfied that Indian suppliers of an item are not allowed to participate and/or compete in procurement by any foreign government, it may, if it deems appropriate, restrict or exclude bidders from that country from eligibility for procurement of that item and/or other items relating to that Nodal Ministry.

According to the Make in India policy, the bidder can reject any bids by a company if the majority of its shareholding or effective control is exercised from any country other than where it is registered.

Earlier, when asked Chinese companies participating in some of railway projects including building new train sets, Railway Board Chairman V K Yadav said, “As far as the question on Chinese companies arises, there are guidelines under the Make in India Policy by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and we will follow them.”

Two trains of Vande Bharat Express was built by Chennai based ICF at a cost of Rs 100 crore each. First under operation between New Delhi and Varanasi and the second between New Delhi and Katra.

To provide better facilities and quality service to train travellers, these trains equipped with modern facilities, such as automatic doors, wi-fi availability and CCTV cameras and many other advanced features. In phased manner Vande Bharat Express trains expected replace the Shatabdi trains.

Separately Apex traders’ body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has ureged Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal to scrap Chinese joint venture company bids for a global tender by the railways for manufacturing trains.

Recently, the Indian Railway cancelled a tender for Covid-19 surveillance thermal cameras after some of Indian firms alleged that the tender specifications favoured a Chinese company. Even the railways also decided to cancel railway singalling works in Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor had given to Chinese company after complaints of slow work progress.