The Hindu Business Line : Global majors keen on Railways loco unit

The companies are — Alstom; Bombardier; Siemens; a consortium comprising China-based CSR Zhuzhou Electric Loco Works and Monnet International; and Japanese consortium comprising Mitsubishi, Kawasaki and Toshiba.

The Railways had invited applications (qualifying bids) for setting up a factory to procure and maintain electric locomotives at Madhepura. Wednesday was the last date for receiving applications.

Indian Railways would have 26 per cent equity in the joint venture while the electric loco company would have rest of the ownership. The joint venture has a minimum assured order of 660 electric locomotives of 12,000 horsepower each from Indian Railways. The locos would be ordered over an eight-year period ranging from 2008-09 to 2015-16 and the joint venture has to maintain the locomotives over a 20-year period.

Land for setting up the factory is being acquired by the railways and will be leased to the joint venture company on a long-term lease basis for around 35 years. The locomotives are planned to be used in the dedicated freight corridor project and the existing routes of the Railways. Railways estimates the project cost to be about Rs 1,000 crore.

Next step

Railways will now study the applications and list the qualified players. It would then invite the request for proposal (financial bids) from the technically-qualified players.

On its electric locomotive requirement, Railway projects that it would need about 1,800 high power locomotives during the 2008-13 period for haulage of the projected freight traffic.

So far, it has been meeting the requirement of electric locomotives almost entirely through in-house production at the Chittaranjan Locomotive Works (CLW), located in West Bengal. CLW currently has a capacity to manufacture about 150 electric locomotives annually. This is being augmented to 200 locomotives a year.

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