Railways terminates project contract awarded to Chinese company

The Ministry of Railways has terminated a contract it had earlier awarded to a Chinese company, citing poor progress as the reason. State-run public sector undertaking (PSU) Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL) has said the company has completed only 20 percent of the project in the last four years.

The contract for the signalling and telecommunication work along a stretch of the Kanpur-Deen Dayal Upadhyay section had earlier been awarded to China's Beijing National Railway Research & Design Institute of Signal & Communication Group Co. Ltd in June 2016.

The DFCCIL said there has been no improvement in progress of the project despite repeated meetings with them at every possible level, even as four years have passed since the contract was first awarded. The Chinese company has also failed to furnish technical documents required as per the contract agreement, it added.

The DFCCIL is a state-run agency under the Railway Ministry set up to undertake planning and development, mobilisation of financial resources and construction, maintenance and operation of the dedicated freight corridors.

The 2018 contract worth 471 crore is to be funded via a World Bank-funded loan. The DFCCIL has also said the non-availability of the company's engineers and authorised personnel at the site was a serious constraint and physical work could not progress as it had no tie-ups with the local agencies.

Meanwhile, the Department of Telecom (DoT) has also reportedly decided to direct state-owned telco Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) to avoid using Chinese equipment in the upgradation of its 4G facilities.

These developments come amid rising tensions between India and China at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Ladakh region after a "violent face-off" between the troops of the neighbouring countries on the night of June 15-16.

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