Bids Reinvited for Chennai Metro Phase 2’s 210 Coach Contract

Chennai Metro Rail Ltd. (CMRL) on Wednesday re-invited bids from rolling stock manufacturers to supply 210 coaches and provide 15 years of maintenance for the 116.1 km Chennai Metro’s Phase 2 project.

Standard gauge coaches from this rolling stock contract ARE02A will operated as 70 train-sets of 3 cars (configuration: DMC+TC+DMC) on the new 45.4 km Line-3 (Madhavaram – Siruseri SIPCOT) and 44.6 km Line-5 (Madhavaram – Sholinganallur).

CMRL had received no bids in the first round of bidding between July 2021 – May 2022 and cancelled the tender in June 2022. The official reason for no participation never surfaced, but I suspect it was due to the STEP loan requirements laid out by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) which requires a significant percentage of Japanese content to be utilized.

• Estimate: N/A
• Contract Period: 7975 days (21.84 years which includes 15 years of maintenance)
• Bid Submission Deadline: November 2, 2023 at 3 PM
• Technical Bid Opening: November 2, 2023 at 4 PM

CMRL’s Brief Scope: Design, Manufacture, Supply, Testing, Commissioning, Training of Personnel and Comrehensive Maintenance Contract for Fifteen (15) years of Standard Gauge Metro Rolling Stock (Electric Multiple Units) and Depot Machinery and Plant

Chennai’s new trains are required to conform to Grade of Automation-4 (GoA4) standards for “driverless” operations.

CMRL had plans to lease 126 coaches for both lines (Package ARE04) and received only one bid from Titagarh in November 2021. That tender was cancelled and a re-tender notice is still pending. If the number of coaches in ARE02A’s scope was bumped up, then I would have suspected that ARE04 was no longer in the works.

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– TMRG