Mumbai: The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority(MMRDA) now will pursue Indian companies for the procurement of monorail rakes.
The statement has come after the Free Press Journal on Thursday reported story of MMRDA that had scrapped the tender for procurement of ten new rakes without disclosing any details for the second time.
While the Joint Metropolitan Commissioner, MMRDA, B G Pawar in a message informed that it has decided to initiate a dialogue with Indian manufactures like BHEL, BEML, etc.
The official further explained through the message that for the present bid, responses were received from two companies, both of which are Chinese manufactures; and continuously asking for revisions in terms & conditions and eligibility criteria, even after uploading of CSDs. In the current economic situation due to COVID-19 and in line with the various polices announced by GoI to encourage the Make in India schemes, it has been decided to look for Indian Technology partner for development and long term support. Considering this, it has been decided to cancel the present tender and start retendering process immediately; with revised eligibility criteria such as manufacturing facilities established in India for last 10 years on similar projects to enable participation of Indian companies.
From past more than a year the MMRDA which took over the operations from the
Malaysia-based SCOMI Engineering over failure to meet contractual obligations in December 2018 has been pursuing international companies for procurement of additional ten new rakes in a bid to run the service efficiently.
Currently due to pandemic the service remains to be suspended. Otherwise the service is operational only on five rakes at a frequency of 22 minutes. The 19.5-km monorail, which runs from Chembur to Jacob Circle via Wadala, was fully opened for commuters only in March 2020 almost 10 years after its construction started. In 2014, the MMRDA opened the first phase of 8.8 km from Chembur to Wadala.
