Sleeper-Edition Vande Bharat: Russian Major TMH Signs Agreement With RVNL For Manufacturing 120 Trains

A shareholder agreement between the Russian rolling-stock major Transmashholding's (TMH) subsidiary, Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL) and Locomotive Electric Systems has been finally signed, for the manufacture of sleeper class Vande Bharat trains.

Ending the days of uncertainty and speculations, the agreement for 120 trains entails creation of a special purpose vehicle (SPV) 'Kinet Railway Solutions Limited' — which will manufacture, supply and maintain Vande Bharat trainsets operated by Indian Railways.

The agreement is crucial for the way forward in the over Rs 30,000 crore contract involving TMH and the Railways PSU RVNL.

Though TMH-RVNL had emerged as the lowest bidder, the contract was almost derailed after the demand of RVNL to become major partner in the joint venture (JV).

However, after the intervention of Russian Embassy, the Russia-India JV came back to life and the RVNL agreed to be the junior partner as per the original programme.

The newly formed SPV will be manufacturing and supplying 120 Vande Bharat-electric passenger sleeper-trainsets within the stipulated time frame and will also be running maintenance services of the train sets for 35 years.

The trainsets are slated to be manufactured at the Railways' Latur facility. The Railways plans to run the sleeper-edition Vande Bharat trains on long distance routes.