CHENNAI, INDIA (Metro Rail News): Titagarh Wagons is the only firm interested in renting trains for the Chennai Metro phase II project.
Chennai Metro Rail Ltd. (CMRL) will buy trains and lease them through a phase II project. The lease program was finalized because they had to cut costs significantly as project costs were surprisingly high initially.
From Rs. 88,000 crore, the cost is estimated at Rs.80,000 crore. However, the Center wanted CMRL to see how it could be reduced. After months of negotiations, project costs were reduced to Rs. 61,843 million.
One of the things that helped CMRL reduce costs was renting trains instead of buying everything. It was decided to purchase 288 coaches (96 trains) and employ the remaining 126 trainers (42 trains).
All Phase II project trains will have three trainers and will eventually be expanded to six as needed. CMRL has been finalizing tenders to purchase 288 trainers.
In addition, CMRL has been invited Expression of Interest (EoI) by hiring coaches for the past few weeks.
CMRL officials plan to ask a few more companies in the sector to find out why they were not interested, get their response and issue another EoI.
