Siemens & Alstom, Both the firms Capable to Manufacture 9000 Horse Power Locomotive took part in Dahod factory bid in 2022; Siemens won it, as it was the lowest bidder with highly competitive price
Siemens & Alstom, Both the firms Capable to Manufacture 9000 Horse Power Locomotive took part in Dahod factory bid in 2022; Siemens won it, as it was the lowest bidder with highly competitive price
This is regarding some questions, which are being raised on the 2022 bidding process, involving the manufacturing of locomotives in Dahod. Following are the facts in this regard.
Transparent tender process: The tender for manufacturing and maintaining 9,000 hp electric locomotives was executed in a transparent manner. There are two electric locomotive manufacturers globally who have the capability to design and manufacture 9000 hp electric locomotives – Alstom and Siemens – both of them participated in the tender.
Evaluation process: The tender was evaluated by a team of technical and financial experts, in line with the processes that Indian railways has always followed. In technical evaluation, both Alstom and Siemens were equally placed. In the financial bid, the bidder with the lowest price was awarded the contract.
Transparent price discovery: The price discovered through this transparent method is highly competitive. The contract is as per the tender documents. There is no change in the tender conditions.
Professional evaluation, no conflict of interest: The entire tender process was executed by the teams of officers who are technically and financially competent to handle such matters as per rules. There is no question of conflict of interest because the process was followed as per rules and procedures that Indian Railways has always followed. There is no role of the Minister of Railways in the tender evaluation process. From 2016 onwards, Railway Ministers ceased to approve tenders. All approvals are handled by empowered Railway Board Members and zonal units, ensuring complete institutional transparency, neutrality and delegation of power. Moreover, both Siemens and Alstom have been working with Indian Railways for many decades.
Guaranteed reliability based agreements: Over the past two decades, Indian Railways has been moving to life cycle cost based procurements so that reliability of products increases and thereby safety of passengers increases.
Components manufacturing: As per the current manufacturing process, about 89% of the components used in manufacture of Dahod locomotives are made in India. Railway component manufacturing ecosystem is rapidly growing in India. A locomotive is a very complex machine and its components are equally complex. They are manufactured at various locations in India and supplied to various locomotive manufacturers. Very few countries in the world can claim the level of manufacturing components that India has been able to achieve because of the thrust given to manufacturing in the last decade.
Maintenance: The locomotives manufactured at Dahod will be maintained at four depots – Visakhapatnam, Raipur, Kharagpur, and Pune.