Saturday, July 29, 2017

New Kanchrapara EMU factory

News is that Three consortia have been shortlisted by Indian Railways for a public-private partnership contract to build a factory to supply around 5 000 electric multiple-unit cars over 12 years and to maintain them for 13 years.
According to reports, the shortlisted bidders are:
  • China railway rolling stock corp (CRRC) with Alstom;  CRRC was in news for Supreme Court case related to Mega Metro-Ahmedabad.
  • Siemens with Bombardier;
  • Stadler Bussnang with Medha Servo Drives.
Final bids are due to be opened in December. The government would own a 26% stake in the joint venture, which would produce the steel-bodied EMUs at a factory which would be built at Kanchrapara near Kolkata in West Bengal under the national Make in India programme. Some reports say that Project cost is likely to be Rs 20,000 crores. But the indicative cost is Rs 1000 Crore and Rs 80 crore will be paid up share capital.
The factory is to be set up in an area of 120 acres, in Kanchrapara-Halisahar. Features:
  1. underslung IGBT propulsion, SS or Aluminium exterior, disc brakes.
  2. biotoilets for MEMUs, Auto door closing,
  3. 110 kmps for EMU, 130 kmps for MEMUs.