Fresh tenders for 44 sets of 'Vande Bharat Trains' would be invited within week: Railway Board Chairman

Railway Board Chairman Vinod Kumar Yadav has said that fresh tenders for 44 sets of Vande Bharat Trains would be invited within a week and asserted that the new guidelines of public procurement will prefer the 'Make in India' initiative.

This comes after the Indian Railways cancelled the tenders of 44 sets of Vande Bharat Trains and invited fresh tenders as per the revised public procurement in order to maintain complete transparency.

"While evaluating the technical bids of the tenders, the Tender Committee had noticed that some of the details of the financial offers had been revealed in the first packet, which was not acceptable. The new guidelines of public procurement will be strictly followed and will prefer the 'Make in India' initiative. To maintain the complete transparency, the Committee has recommended to cancel the tender and invite fresh tenders," Yadav said in a press conference via video conferencing on Sunday.

"Fresh tenders would be invited within a week and would have the provisions to manufacture Vande Bharat Train Sets at all the three Production Units of Indian Railways, ICF, MCF and RCF," he added.

Yadav said that the Railway is trying to initiate this project as early as possible.

"But, due to some technical issues, this project has been delayed. In a fresh tenders timeline for manufacturing of Train Sets will be compressed," said the Railway Board Chairman, adding that there would be an increase in indigenous content from the present level of 50 per cent to a higher level as part of the Atmrbhar Bharat initiative.

On Friday, the Integral Coach Factory (ICF), Chennai had cancelled the older tender, which was floated on December 22, 2019.

( With inputs from ANI )