Did someone make a mistake or was Siemens desperate?

Siemens wins order of 1200 Locomotives

Close watchers have given #Railwhispers several pointers while admitting that though these rates are workable, these are surely disruptive!

On 06 December, 2022 history of sorts was made when financial bids for supply of 1200 locomotives to be built in the Railway factory at #Dahod and maintained for 35 years were opened.

M/s #Alstom, which makes 12000 hp locomotive at Greenfield Electric Locomotive Factory in former Railway Minister, Lalu Prasad Yadav’s home district – Madhepura in Bihar – quoting Rs. 23.36 crores (with GST) and M/s #Siemens quoting Rs. 13.18 crores (with GST).

It is pertinent to note that 6000 hp #WAG9 platform made by #CLW, #BLW and #PLW costs almost Rs. 11 crores (all inclusive transfer price, including all overheads). Labour and overheads are about 10-15% of the transfer price which includes manpower, workshop expenses, colony, hospital etc.

Are these desperate prices by a desperate company?

Doubts have been expressed that someone made a mistake at Siemens as the next bid was almost 10 crores more expensive.

#Siemens has been consistently out-priced by competition in the last two decades and has practically shut down power-converter and traction motor manufacturing facilities which can easily meet the requirement of 1200 locomotives.

So did someone make a mistake or was Siemens desperate?

Basic analysis shows that it is not so. Siemens has quoted a price which looks workable and has already worked on a 9000 hp electric locomotive. There is healthy profit also cozily snuck in, which is important for such long term projects.

Way Ahead–

Close watchers have given #Railwhispers several pointers while admitting that though these rates are workable, these are surely disruptive.

These pointers pertain to policy directions, future of certain departments and technical competence of some so-called experts of Indian Railways at Rail Bhavan.

However, we reserve our comments for a little more time as Indian Railways is undergoing a major shift in leadership and we do not want to sensationalise issues.

We are also using this time to cross verify and collect more data and details as we have carefully done in our much appreciated series to expose the facts as earlier.

#Railwhispers congratulates Railway Minister Mr Ashwini Vaishnaw for this disruption.

Dear readers, a very rewarding series comes up soon, based on the pointers and detailed analysis several experts have shared, please have patience!