RAILWAY SAMACHAR

Supreme Court raps Railways

for hooliganism in trains

New Delhi : Rail passengers cannot be left at the mercy of burglars and hooligans, the Supreme Court has said rapping the Railways for its failure toprotect the luggage of passengers, including those travelling in reserved airconditioned compartments which have attendants, from getting stolen. "We cannot leave the passengers at the mercy of hooligans who enter reserved compartments. We know how unauthorised passengers enter even reserved compartments in your trains," a bench of Justices B N Aggrawal and G S Singhvisnapped at the Railways counsel Annapurnia. The counsel had taken the stand that theft of luggage as alleged by the woman passenger Pinki Gupta cannot be countenanced on the ground that unauthorised persons cannot enter a reserved compartment. She had contended that the passenger was apparently lying. However, the bench was not impressed with the argument and after making the stinging observation, dismissed the special leave petition filed by the South Western Railway officials challenging the compensation awarded by the district consumer forum, Bangalore, to the woman. Pinki, a resident of Bangalore had boarded the Bangalore Rajdhani Express on October 24, 2005 at Nizamuddin along with her two children aged six andthree-and-half years respectively.

BEML reduces prices of coaches

BANGALORE : After many rounds of negotiations, the Bangalore Metro Rail corporation Limited (BMRCL) has finally convinced the Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) to reduce the prices of 150 coaches by Rs 160 crore. The BEML-led consortium has agreed to supply 150 cars (50 train sets with threecars each) at a lump-sum price of Rs 1,672.5 crore including spares as against their original offer of Rs 1,832.5 crore.After the negotiations, the Board of Directors of BMRCL, in a meeting on Saturday, approved the award of contact for rolling stock to the BEML-ledconsortium. The earlier offer by the consortium to supply rolling stock to the BMRCL at Rs1,832.5 crore was Rs 250 crore higher than the price at which BEML had supplied coaches to the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) in 2007. However, this offer from the consortium of BEML, Rotem and Mitsubishi was thelowest bidder. The contract is to design, manufacture, supply, test and commission 150 cars for the Phase I of the Metro rail project. The first train sets will be ready for testing in the depot by October 2010. Still high? The reduced price is still Rs 90 crore higher than the prices offered to DMRC though in case of supply to BMRCL, BEML has the advantage of being based in Bangalore and enjoys benefits like tax concessions. However, Managing Director, BMRCL, N Sivasailam, said: 'The prices that we arepaying now are comparable to what DMRC paid.'Other contracts M/s URC Construction Ltd, Erode for the construction of a depot at Byappanahalli. Completion period: 30 months at Rs 136.45 crore. M/s Punj Llyod- Sembawang- Sembawang (India), Gurgaon, for construction of elevated stations at MG Road and Trinity Circle. Completion period: 22 months at Rs 87.22 crore. M/s IVRCL-CR 18G for construction of two elevated stations at RV Road Terminaland Jayanagar. Completion period:22 months22 months at a cost of Rs 71.52 crore.

Indian Railway calls for financial bids for locomotive units

New Delhi : BL reported that companies wanting to set up the Greenfield electric and diesel locomotive factories in partnership with the Indian Railways might have tosubmit their financial bids by February 16th 2009. As per repro, Indian Railways recently received a Cabinet approval to invite the financial bids for setting up the two loco units in Bihar in partnership with international firms. Each factory will be set up as a JV between Ministry of Railways with equity of26% and an international company. Selection of JV partner will be through an international competitive bidding. The JV company will have procurement cum maintenance contract with the Railways.To be set up at an estimated price of about INR 1,000 crore each, the JV company will have to make available locomotives for traffic use for 95% of the specified time and the energy efficiency of locomotives will have to be 5% to 10% higher over the existing fleet on IR. From the electric locomotive unit to be set up at Madhepura in Bihar, Ministry of Railways will procure 800 locomotives of 12,000 horse power over a 10 year period. The diesel loco unit to be set up at Marhowra in Bihar, Railways will procure1,000 diesel locomotives of 4,500 or 6,000 HP over a 10 year period. These locomotives will also be maintained by the JV companies over the subsequent 25to 26 years. In 2008, Indian Railways had already short listed the bidders after inviting the technical bids. GE and EMD have been short listed for the diesel loco unit at Marhowra and Alstom, Bombardier and Siemens have been short listed for the electric loco unit at Madhepura.