The Indian Railways has floated a tender for the production of 58 new Vande Bharat trains and aims to deliver 75 trains by August 23 next year, according to officials aware of the development.
“With the tender for 44 Vande Bharat rakes earlier this year and the 58 new rakes we will have 102 Vande Bharat trains ready by 2024,” a ministry official said. HT has reviewed a copy of the tender.
Currently, only two such Shatabdi-type semi-high speed trains are in operation.
The new coaches will be manufactured at the Integral Coach Factory, Chennai, Modern Coach Factory, Rae Bareilly and Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala.
This comes in the backdrop of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day announcement of rolling out 75 new Vande Bharat Express trains that will be launched to connect different parts of the country in 75 weeks to mark the ongoing “Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav”.
The tender floated on August 28, invited bids for the design, development, manufacture, integration and testing of traction propulsion electrics for the manufacture of 58 rakes of Vande Bharat trains.
The Indian Railways in September last year floated a revised tender for procuring 44 semi-high speed Vande Bharat trains mandating 75% domestic components, making it a domestic tender.
(With inputs from ANI)
