3 Indian companies show interest for monorail rakes: MMRDA
After cancelling the bidding process for acquiring monorail rakes, where the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) received bids from two Chinese companies, the authority on Friday said that it is in talks with three Indian companies for manufacturing the rakes.
The authority is hoping for Make-in-India coaches for monorail following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for ‘Aatmanirbharta’ or ‘self-reliance’. A senior official from MMRDA said, “We are in talks with Indian manufacturers like Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML), Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) and Titagarh. The latter has also been positive on manufacturing the rolling stock which is quite a breakthrough.”
Bengaluru-based BEML is already manufacturing metro rakes for Metro 2A (Dahisar-DN Nagar) and Metro-7 (Dahisar E-Andheri E).
Earlier in June, MMRDA confirmed that the authority received two responses for the tender on manufacturing 10 rakes, both from Chinese companies, CRRC corporation Ltd and BYD Co Ltd. A senior official from MMRDA also said that the Chinese firms were continuously asking for revisions in terms and conditions. MMRDA is looking at acquiring 10 additional rakes for 19.5 km corridor since early 2019.