'Disclosure of prices reason for scrapping Vande Bharat trains tender'

 

The Indian Railways cancelled its global tender for manufacturing 44 sets of semi-high speed Vande Bharat trains.

Two days after the Indian Railways cancelled its global tender for manufacturing 44 sets of semi-high speed Vande Bharat trains, a top Railway official on Sunday said that the disclosure of prices offered by prospective bidders at the technical qualification stage for manufacturing these trains was the reason behind scrapping of the tender.

Railway Board Chairman V.K. Yadav said the tender invited two packet bids -- technical bids and financial bids. First, the technical bids are opened and evaluated after which the financial bids of only those bidders who qualify in the technical bids are opened.

"To have the transparency in evaluation, while evaluating the technical bids, financial bids are not available to the Tender Evaluation Committee. While evaluating the technical bids of train set tenders, the committee has noticed that some of the details of financial offers have been revealed in the first packet i.e. technical bids," he said at a virtual press conference here.

"To maintain complete transparency, the Tender Committee has recommended to cancel this tender and invite fresh tenders. The Tender Accepting Authority i.e . General Manager ICF has accepted the recommendations of Tender Committee. Fresh tenders will be invited within a week," Yadav said.

The Chairman also said that three companies had made the error of mentioning the price of the products they were to supply and explanations have been sought from them.

The Railway Ministry, while cancelling the tender, in a statement had said that it was being done to make way for a fresh tender adhering to new public procurement policy of the government vis-a-vis Make in India.