The Indian Railways has issued a letter of award to manufacture 120 Vande Bharat trains with sleeper coaches to JSC Metrovagonmash-Mytischi (TMH), a Russian company with expertise in rolling stock for railways.
The Russian company has a joint venture with Indian public sector company Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL).
The joint venture emerged as the lowest bidder in the tender process, quoting a price of $14.6 million per train.
According to media reports, the India-Russian venture will manufacture the coaches in Latur in the Indian state of Maharashtra.
The Railways has said that it could enlarge TMH-RVNL’s order to 200. The Indian Railways has told the second-lowest bidder that it was ready to make them an offer to manufacture 80 trains if they could match the bid price of the India-Russian venture.
The second-lowest bidder was a joint venture of Indian companies Titagarh Wagons and Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), a public sector enterprise.
The Titagarh-BHEL consortium quoted a bid of nearly $17 million per train.
Growing India-Russia Trade Ties
India's trade ties with Russia have been on the upward trajectory since last February, amid a surge in energy and other imports from Moscow owing to a global volatility in food and energy prices.
The two countries have vowed to diversify their trade basket and set an annual trade target of $50 billion this year. Trade between the two countries hit a record high of $38.4 billion in 2022, making Russia one of India's five biggest trading partners for the first time in history.