Centre scraps tender for 44 Vande Bharat trains over Chinese firm link

The Ministry of Railways on Friday night (August 21) announced that it has cancelled a tender for manufacturing 44 semi high-speed Vande Bharat trains and that a fresh tender will be floated within a week for the same. According to sources, the step was taken as soon as it was found that a Chinese bidder was involved in the process.

The ministry also clarified that preference will be given to local manufacturers under the Centre’s Make in India programme.

“Tender for manufacturing of 44 nos of semi high-speed train sets (Vande Bharat) has been cancelled.

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Fresh tender will be floated within a week as per Revised Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) order,” the ministry said in a tweet.

One of the six bidders was CRRC Pioneer Electric (India) Pvt Ltd, a joint venture between China based CRRC Yongji Electric Company Ltd and Gurugram-based Pioneer Fil-Med Pvt Ltd (formed in 2015).

The tender was floated by the Integral Coach Factory of the Indian Railways in Chennai.

Quoting sources who did not want to be named, PTI said the railways want to entrust domestic firms with the tender and the project was scrapped once it was found that a Chinese joint venture was a frontrunner.

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The other five bidders were Bharat Industries, Sangrur, Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd, Medha Servo Drivers Pvt Ltd, Electrowaves Electronics and Powernetics Equipment India Pvt Ltd.