The railways has floated a tender for 58 Vande Bharat train sets after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in his Independence Day speech that 75 such trains will be launched in 75 weeks of ''Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav'' to connect different parts of the country.
Currently, only two such Shatabdi-type semi-high speed trains are in operation.
The new coaches will be manufactured at the Integral Coach Factory, Chennai, Modern Coach Factory, Rae Bareilly and Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala.
The closing date for the tender is October 20. A pre-bid meeting will be held on September 21 with the cut-off date for the submission of pre-bid queries being September 14.
The tender floated on August 28 has invited bids for the design, development, manufacturing, integration and testing of traction propulsion electrics for the 58 rakes of Vande Bharat trains.
In his speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort on August 15, Modi had said that in the 75 weeks of ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ being celebrated to mark the journey of 75 years of Independence, the railways will launch 75 Vande Bharat trains to connect far-flung areas.
The railways had in September last year floated a revised tender for procuring 44 semi-high speed Vande Bharat trains, mandating 75 per cent domestic component, making it a domestic tender.
That followed the government scrapping three global tenders for the ambitious project.
With the latest tender, 102 such trains will be delivered to the Railways by March 2024, an official said, adding 75 of them will be available by August 15, 2023 itself.
The next lot of Vande Bharat trains with upgraded amenities, better seating space, security and surveillance systems and features designed for emergencies, is expected to be commercially available from June 2022 onward.
The new passenger amenities and features planned to be added include four emergency windows for easy evacuation, backup disaster lights in all coaches and emergency push buttons increased to four per coach.
The coaches will also have a Centralised Coach Monitoring System for all electrical, climate control and functioning of other vital systems of the train.
An important upgrade in the new coaches will also include the pushback arrangement for reclining of seats. In the first two rakes of the Vande Bharat trains, issues regarding the seating comfort level had been raised.
The first prototype will be out by March-April 2022, officials said.
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