BEML bags Rs 3,015 cr contract for Mumbai Metro Corridor

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi : Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML), a public sector undertaking of the Government, has bagged a contract for Rs.3,015 crore for Mumbai Metro Corridor. Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs has contributed to this one of the biggest success stories under Make in India initiatives of the Government.

The order includes manufacturing of 378 Metro cars (63 Metro trains of 6 cars each) for Mumbai Metro Corridor 2A, 2B & 7. BEML was the lowest among seven bidders which included 6 internationally renowned bidders. The state of art, driverless trains shall be manufactured indigenously by M/S BEML.

The supply of trains will begin from October 2020 and completed by December 2022. BEML has earlier also supplied metro coaches in smaller numbers but along with an international player as a JV partner. It has now sub-contracted M/s Hitachi only for some designs. The coaches will be manufactured in the BEML factory at Bengaluru, according to a PIB release.

Evolution of metro rail in India is indeed a breath-taking story. Today about 536 km of metro lines are operational in 10 different cities namely, Delhi & NCR (317 km), Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Jaipur, Kochi, Lucknow, Mumbai and Gurugram. In addition, more than 650 km of metro rail projects are under construction in Delhi & NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, Kochi, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Pune, Bhopal and Indore. Many more cities are also planning metro rail system.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has made concerted efforts for indigenisation of metro rail systems in the country. For this, it has standardised the specifications for metro rolling-stock, signalling, telecom, electrical and civil components. It has also adopted the Public Procurement Order, Make in India (PPO/MII) 2017, for metro rail systems. MoHUA has also stipulated that minimum 75% of the coaches procured against any tender have to be manufactured in India.