Railways floats tender of Rs 30k cr for 800 electric train engines

On 4 May, the Indian Railways floated a tender for the manufacture and supply of 800 electric train engines under a contract worth around Rs 30,000 crores.

These electric train engines of 12,000-horsepower will be supplied over the next 10 years and will be manufactured at Varanasi's Banaras Locomotive Works.

The notice inviting the bid stated that these train engines are to be maintained at Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh), Tughlakabad (Delhi), and Sabarmati (Gujarat).

These electric train engines are to be utilised all over the Indian Railways and dedicated freight corridor (DFC) routes. Each train engine must be competent in hauling 6,000 tonnes of load at an average speed of 75 kilometres per hour (kmph).

The concept of trains for freight movement was proposed in 2007-08. Generally, the freight trains were underpowered, and this slowed down the movement of trains.

Railway Board former member traffic, VN Mathur, told the media that the new locomotives would be much more competent in handling heavy-haul loads on the Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC).

In 2015, a similar tender for 12,000-HP electric locomotives was awarded to Alstom as a contract part worth about Rs 28,195 crores.

The contract was to supply 800 locomotives for freight service, competent in hauling 6,000 tonnes at a maximum speed of 120 kmph.

This contract has been the largest foreign direct investment (FDI) project in the Indian railway sector till now.

A retired railway official told the media that this was the first successful public-private partnership (PPP) of the Indian Railways. Alstom had bid for supplying at around Rs 38 crore per locomotive. At that time, the international market value was around Rs 60 crore per locomotive.

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