The Asian Development Bank (ADB) funding these three projects have reservations regarding this procurement policy wherein 75 per cent of the coaches will have to be manufactured in India
While civil works for Metro corridors in the city are being carried out smoothly, the Central Government's 'Make In India' initiative is proving to be a hurdle in the procurement of rolling stocks (coaches) for three Metro corridors, namely, the Andheri East–Dahisar East Metro-7 corridor, Dahisar- DN Nagar Metro-2A corridor, and DN Nagar-Mandale Metro-2B corridor.
Reason? The Asian Development Bank (ADB) funding these three projects have reservations regarding this procurement policy wherein 75 per cent of the coaches will have to be manufactured in India, claimed Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) officials who have written to the central government seeking assistance on the same.
An MMRDA official said, "We already started the civil work for Metro-2A and Metro-7 last year, and the same might get over by 2018, after which we will need rolling stocks to be ready to make these two corridors operational. But the ADB has been delaying the approval of the loan amount which is in a way delaying the procurement process."
The MMRDA official added, "The delay is majorly because of the procurement policy of rolling stocks wherein ADB has reservations over 75 per cent of rolling stocks being manufactured in India. We have written to the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) under the Ministry of Finance seeking assistance."
UPS Madan, Metropolitan Commissioner, MMRDA, confirmed approaching the central government for the same. The MMRDA is self financing the civil cost of the all the three corridors mentioned and the cost for rolling stocks, and the rest would be financed by the ADB loan.
This also means that as procurement of coaches is getting delayed, the MMRDA will have necessary infrastructure to run Metro but not have the coaches ready to run by next year.
The MMRDA plans to procure 63 driver-less trains of six coaches each for the above mentioned Metro corridors of which 15 coaches will be manufactured outside India, and the remaining within the country.
In email reply, a spokesperson for ADB said, "We is still in the process of appraising the project. After completing appraisal to a mutually acceptable level, there would be other formal steps such as loan negotiations, approval by the ADB Board, and then finally the signing of the loan. No funds would be available until the project is actually approved by board."
- Prior to this, Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) funding the Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro-3 underground project had also expressed reservations over having Metro coaches manufactured in India, but had later agreed to the same.
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