A Chinese company winning a prestigious metro railway order has created a lot of heartburn among its Indian competitors who have lost out.

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China Railway Rolling Stock Corp (CRRC), a global rail coach manufacturing company, has been awarded the contract for designing and manufacturing coaches for Nagpur Metro Railways.

Indian competitors BEML and Titagarh Firema Adler SPA, a consortium led by private sector players Titagarh Wagons, had taken legal recourse after the Chinese firm won the contract in September. However, the Bombay High Court has rejected their appeals.

CRRC claims to be the first foreign company in the Railways sector to set up plant in India following unveiling of ambitious Make in India campaign.

It recently announced investment of $63.4 million at its plant in Haryana.

Nagpur Metro Rail Corp had issued a tender in January, following which three bidders - BEML, Titagarh Firema and CRRC - submitted their bids.

With BEML getting disqualified in the technical bid round, the Chinese company and the Titagarh consortium remained in the fray.

In the financial bid opened on September 29, the Chinese company was found to have given a bid of Rs 851 crore while Titagarh Firema’s bid was marginally higher at Rs 852 crore, sources said.

Aggrieved by the decision of Nagpur Metro Rail Corp, the consortium approached Bombay High Court through a writ petition.

The Court in its October 5 order refused to interfere with the decision taken by the tender evaluation committee approved by the directors.

Following the dismissal of the Titagarh’s writ petition, the Chinese company was awarded the contract.

It was now turn of BEML to approach Bombay High Court demanding that it was wrongfully disqualified.

The tender document required that applicants should have at least 10 years’ experience in designing and manufacturing of metro coaches numbering at least 500 units and that bidder must have undertaken minimum five contracts for metro railways, light rail transit (LRT) or high-speed railways. When Nagpur Metro Rail authorities pointed out that BEML had supplied mostly tramcars, the government-run firm argued that LRTs and trams are the same thing and should be considered for meeting qualification parameters.

Court, in its ruling on October 25, rejected this contention and upheld awarding of contract to the Chinese company.“We find that the conduct of the petitioner is also additional ground to be taken into consideration for not entertaining the petition... Any interference at this stage would delay the project,” the order said.

DERAILED

  • Indian competitors BEML and Titagarh Firema Adler SPA had taken legal recourse after the Chinese firm won the contract in September  
  • CRRC claims to be the first foreign company in the Railways sector to set up plant in India following unveiling of Make in India campaign