Russian and Indian Railways set to manufacture Vande Bharat trains in boost to Make in India campaign

Transmashholding, a leading Russian company in railway engineering, will sign a supply agreement with Indian Railways next month as it moves ahead with its plan to open an Indian subsidiary to jointly manufacture 120 16-car Vande Bharat Express high-speed trains.

The Russian-Indian consortium of Transmashholding (TMH) and Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL), which functions as an extended arm of the Ministry of Railways, won the tender last month for the production, supply, and maintenance of 120 passenger electric trains (1920 cars) to India. Reports suggest that the contract is worth $1.7 billion, believed to be the largest foreign order in Russian railway engineering.

TMH head Kirill Lipa told reporters on the sidelines of the State Duma that the company will sign an agreement with Indian Railways in mid-May 2023.

“Everything will be built in India. Because India has a make-in-India act that requires localization,” Lipa was quoted as saying by the Russian news agency Tass on Tuesday.

Earlier, Transmashholding – which participated in the tender through its Metrovagonmash plant in the Moscow Region’s Mytishi – stated that the first sample of the train should appear in two years with the first delivery of Vande Bharat Express trains scheduled to be made within the next five years.

“The total cost of rolling stock under the tender taking into account the organisation of maintenance over 35 years can amount to up to $6 billion,” Sergey Medvedev, head of business development at Metrovagonmash told TASS in December.

Last month, Transmashholding signed a contract for the supply of 28 new modern metro cars for the Belarusian subway after representatives of the Minsk Metro visited its production site.

The Russian major has also supplied 60 cars for the Baku Metro in the capital of Azerbaijan between 2020 and 2023.

In 2018, TMH signed a 1 billion Euro contract for 1300 passenger cars with the Egyptian National Railways with the production taking place in Russia and Hungary.

The trains with new passenger cars are operated daily on the Cairo–Alexandria (208 km), Cairo–Asyut (380 km), and Cairo–Sohag (473 km) lines.

‘India’s first indigenous semi-high-speed train, Vande Bharat Express is a significant effort made by the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi towards strengthening and making the ‘Make in India’ initiative a massive success story.

The train, equipped with state-of-the-art passenger amenities, has redefined the passenger travel experience in the country. Last Saturday, PM Modi flagged off India’s 12th Vande Bharat train which has been introduced between Bhopal and New Delhi.

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