Thu. Mar 28th, 2024
Ministry Of Railway

The Ministry of Railways has decided to discontinue the tender for running 151 private trains along 109 Important lines for an estimated expenditure of ₹30,000 crores, mainly due to the tepid response to the bids it received from the private players, according to officials aware of the matter. 

An official aware of the development told BusinessToday.In, “The current tenders for private train operations will be discharged and fresh bids with changes in the provision for private participation will be rolled out soon.”

 “The ministry has started work on fresh bids with learnings from the recent tendering process,” the source further said.

The Ministry of Railways announced bids for private players for operating passenger trains in twelve clusters around the nation in July 2020. There were 109 origin-destination pairs in the plan. On a revenue basis, winning bidders were to be given a 35-year concession term.

According to the railway ministry’s projections, the transporter had to select the companies that will operate private trains by April 2021; the first dozen trains are supposed to operate by 2023-24 after that 45 more will be operational in  FY 2024-25, the next 50  trains will ply in FY 2025-26 afterwards the last batch of 44 trains will run by 2026-27.

Last year, during the Request for Qualification (RFQ)  around 15 firms showed their interest in the bid, namely MR Highways Ltd, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd (IRCTC), IRB Infrastructure Developers Ltd, Cube Highways and Infrastructure III Pte. Ltd, CAF India Private Ltd, Arvind Aviation, BHEL, Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, S.A, Cube Highways and Infrastructure III Pvt Ltd, and Gateway Rail Freight Limited. 

L&T Infrastructure Development Projects Limited, Malempati Power Private Limited, Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited, PNC Infratech Ltd, RK Associates and Hoteliers Pvt Ltd, Sainath Sales, Services Pvt Ltd and Welspun Enterprises Limited evinced their enthusiasm for the bid, in total, 14 firms and one Spanish firm submitted the quotation.

However, these numbers slashed down in a recent RFP stage (financial bidding) and only two bidders — IRCTC and Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd remained stuck to the deal for two clusters, while all others withdrew their names citing concession rules favouring Indian Railways

There are two clusters each in Delhi and Mumbai, and one cluster each in Secunderabad, Chennai, Howrah, Jaipur, Prayagraj, Chandigarh, Bengaluru, and Patna on Indian Railways’ network where the idea was to be implemented.

A Railway Ministry official, in a statement to BusinessToday, said, “In that, the tender committee will decide on the further course of action on the bids received by the two companies, now that fresh bids are to be invited.”

 

By Harshita Sharma

I bring to you updates from business, policy and economy spectrum.

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