Railways scraps tender for 44 Vande Bharat trains as firm has Chinese links

Guwahati: India-China’s rife seems to be continuing, as the ministry of railways on Friday cancelled a tender for manufacturing 44 sets of Vande Bharat trains, which are semi-high speed train, as the company which had put the bid has a Chinese partner.

The railway ministry will now float fresh tender within a week as per Revised Public Procurement (preference to Make in India) order.

Railways said in a tweet, “Tender for manufacturing of 44 nos of semi high speed train sets (Vande Bharat) has been cancelled. Fresh tender will be floated within a week as per Revised Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) order.”

As per the revised order, for public procurement, preference will be given to local suppliers or to those companies whose goods and services have 50% or more local content.

The move aimed at promoting ‘Make in India’ and making the country self-reliant has introduced a concept of Class-I, II and non-local suppliers, based on which they will get preference in government purchases of goods and services.

Class-I local suppliers will get the most preference as their domestic value addition is 50% or more. Class-II suppliers are those whose value addition range is more than 20% but less than 50%

Companies with less than 20% domestic content will not able to participate in most of the government tenders and they are categorised as “non-local suppliers”.

Only Class-I local supplier, shall be eligible to bid irrespective of purchase value.

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