Vande Bharat tender scrapped over ‘favouritism’

The tender for manufacturing 40 train sets for the Vande Bharat Express has been scrapped amid “favouritism” suspicion and a fresh one will be issued next month, Railway Board chairman Vinod Kumar Yadav said on Tuesday.

“As per the recommendations of the tender committee, we have decided to scrap the older tender of 40 rakes of the Vande Bharat Express as it was noticed a certain Hyderabad-based company was being favoured. We will issue a new tender in October and cover up for the delayed timeline of the project,” Yadav said.

The order for the manufacturing of rakes of the Vande Bharat Express is scheduled to be completed by 2022. The second Vande Bharat Express will run on the high traffic Delhi-Katra route.

Two rakes of Vande Bharat Express are available for operations and one of them runs between Delhi and Varanasi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 15 launched the New Delhi-Varanasi Vande Bharat Express or Train 18, India’s first locally built semi high-speed train.Yadav said the Vande Bharat Express had also run into technical trouble and further delayed the tendering process.

“The issues included the higher gross weight of the train set…The current rake has had complaints of uncomfortable seats and also does not comply with sleeper berth norms which will be there in the new rakes,” Yadav said.

This comes in the backdrop of a vigilance inquiry sought by the ministry of railways in June on complaints of “irregularities” at the state-run Integrated Coach Factory in Chennai, where the rakes are manufactured.

“The inquiry will conclude in three months,” Yadav said.

First Published:
Sep 18, 2019 03:08 IST