Consortium Of Russia's TMH And India's RVNL To Make 120 Vande Bharat Trains With Sleeper Facility

The Indian Railways has selected the consortium of Russia's JSC Metrowagonmash-Mytischi (TMH) and India's RVNL to manufacture 120 Vande Bharat trains with sleeper facility.

TMH, in partnership with railway PSU RVNL, secured the contract, and will manufacture the trains at Latur.

The railways have informed the Russian company that the work order also includes the option for increasing the number of trains up to 200.

TMH-RVNL, which quoted the lowest price of Rs 120 crore per train, was the L1 bidder in the recent tendering process.

Titagarh-BHEL, a joint venture, submitted a proposal to manufacture 80 Vande Bharat trains with a price of Rs 140 crore per train but was outbid by TMH-RVNL.

The Railways has also offered a counter offer to Titagarh-BHEL to secure the project by manufacturing the trains at Rs 120 crore per rake, which is the price offered by TMH-RVNL, reports Economic Times.

TMH-RVNL consortium quoted Rs 120 crore for making the Vande Bharat train with Sleeper facility much below the anticipated price of Rs 130 crore.

BHEL-Titagarh group has submitted the price at nearly Rs 140 crore and became the second lowest bidder for the high value project worth over Rs 40,000 crore.

The design for sleeper is different from the existing Vande Bharat trains as there would be three toilets in each coach instead of two now. The water tank would be 2,000 litre capacity as against 1,880 litre in the existing Vande Bharat train.

Berth pattern would be changed to make it sleeper class with arrangement for curtains, pantry cars and matching lighting system.

It would take about 24 months to produce the first prototype after the award of the contract.