Title - Railway needs to put Rs 3000 crore order in order to get Talgo coaches

Talgo might not be seen running soon in India as the Spanish company wants Indian Railways to place an order of Rs 3000 crore to begin with.

After successful trial runs of Talgo coaches, company is looking forward for the contract to start building coaches. The current delivered coaches were not as per the desired size of Indian Railways. Company is willing to modify coaches as per Indian Railway’s demand but it wants that an order of atleast 500 coaches should be placed by the railways. However, with the order of 500 coaches the company will manufacture them in Spain itself and will deliver them in 18 months.

The company further says that if those coaches are to be manufactured in India, then the order should be of atleast 1000 coaches plus the land on which the company will set shop. But since one Talgo coach costs 6 crore of rupees, which will amount the order to a total of Rs 6000 crore and it will take 3 years for the company to deliver the coaches.

Normally as per procedures railway should opt tender process before placing the final order but bidding process can also be bypassed through government-to-government contract.

Earlier in September Talgo has successfully completed trial run at a maximum speed of 180kmph between Delhi and Mumbai completing the full journey in 11 hours and 48 minutes compared to that of Rajdhani’s 15 hours 50 minutes with maximum speed of 130kmph.