Railways Floats Tender for 58 Vande Bharat Rakes
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New Delhi, August 30: The railways has floated a tender for 58 rakes of Vande Bharat Express trains. This took place after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement on Independence Day that 75 of such trains will be launched in 75 weeks, all connecting various parts of India.
At present, only 2 such trins of Shatabdi-type having semi-high speed are in operation.
These coaches will be manufactured at the Integral Coach Factory, Chennai, Modern Coach Factory, Rae Bareilly and at Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala.
October 20, 2021 is the closing date for the tender. A pre-bid meeting is to be held on September 21 and the cut-off date for submission of pre-bid queries is September 14.
A railway ministry official said that, “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.”
The tender was floated on August 28 and invited bids for the development, design, manufacturing, integration and also the testing of traction propulsion electrics for the manufacture of 58 rakes of the Vande Bharat trains.
Mr. Modi said in his speech of the Red Fort on August 15 that in the 75 weeks of ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ being celebrated, marking the journey of 75 years of Independence, the railways will be launching 75 Vande Bharat trains which will connect even the far-flung areas.
In September 2020, the railways floated a revised tender to procure 44 semi-high speed Vande Bharat trains. This mandated 75% of the domestic components which made it a domestic tender.
The next of the Vande Bharat rakes will have amenities like better seating, security. Surveillance systems are expected to be made available commercially starting June 2022. Some of the new amenities and safety features planned to be added are 4 emergency windows to enable easy evacuation of passengers; disaster lights in all coaches, and more emergency push buttons – 4 per coach.