Who is answerable?
#ICF had made new #Design-VandeBharat at ₹6 crore per coach, fit for 200 kmph, all with open tenders.
But #BEML gets #SingleTender order for 16 coaches of 250 kmph train at ₹54 crore per coach. They will issue further single tenders to favourite companies. ₹26 crore per coach is the #design and #development cost, totalling ₹416 crores.
Why couldn’t #ICF be given the same freedom for this new train? Why couldn’t ICF be given this same ₹416 crores for design and development so that Indian Railways owned the Intellectual Property Rights (#IPR) and the know how?
It means, #ICF has surrendered due to terror of Vigilance and vested interests of the powerful in a particular company.
Vigilance enquired into allegations of undue favour to a particular #Electrics company in 2018 and ruined careers of bold officers. More than six years later #Ministry of #Railways has failed to find even one alternate source. Who is answerable now?
Ministry of Railways can’t assure its engineers of protection against frivolous #Vigilance cases given the history of torture and punishment.