Four multinational firms, including two Chinese companies, are in the race for the Marhowrah diesel railway locomotive plant in Bihar to be built on the public-private partnership (PPP) mode.
The RFQ for the project closed on Friday.
Global technology giants GE, EMD, CSR Corporation China and China CNR Corp have come forward for the R 2,100-crore project.
?The shortlisting of the project is expected to be done in within 15 days. The deadline for the project is January and we intend to award the project before that,? a railway board official said.
The two Chinese companies have also applied for the Madhepura electric rail loco factory.
The approval for fresh bidding for the project was received by the Cabinet in May after which the tendering process was started.
The RFQ, which was to be closed in June, got delayed several times.
?The last date of applying for the project was Friday and these four companies have come forward,? the railway board official added.
The loco factory will produce around 1,000 units in 10 years. The railways is also in the process of shortlisting qualified companies for its electric loco project in Madhepura.
The controversial diesel loco project (along with the electric loco project in Madhepura) was announced by the then railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav in 2006 after which the tendering process was rolled out in August 2008. Two players, EMD and GE, were shortlisted as qualified companies. In 2009, RFP document for the project was approved by the Cabinet but only one bid came.
So, the railway ministry went back to the Cabinet saying that joint venture route didn’t materialize and asked for the permission to take the public undertaking (PU) route for the project for which the Cabinet gave its approval. This was just before the 2009 general elections.
After UPA-II came back to power, the railways again approached the Cabinet saying the market scenario has now approved and going with the a joint venture would be beneficial for which they again received the nod.
And the same companies (GE and EMD) came again. The empowered committee made for the project wanted some changes in the bidding documents after considering concerns of bidders.
Taking view of the situation, an empowered group of ministers (EGoM), consisting of the finance, railway ministries and the Planning Commission, was formed which was of the view that since a lot of conditions in the bidding documents were to be changed, it was better to go for fresh bids.
The approval for fresh bids came in May.
