MMRDA scraps 10 new monorail rake tenders

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has terminated the tender, on Wednesday, which was issued for the procurement of additional 10 rakes, comprising four coaches each, in a bid to run the monorail services efficiently. Dr DLN Murty, COO of Mumbai Monorail, who issued the tender termination notice, stated that the authority will issue further communication regarding it soon. However, it did not disclose the reason for the cancellation of the tender process midway. The officials, too, failed to give any comment on the matter when contacted by this newspaper's reporter.

Reportedly, the MMRDA had extended the tender timeline for the procurement of 10 new rakes up to June 22. This tender was issued in January. However, in February, the government issued a notification for all the agencies, making it mandatory that the selected bidders have to give bank guarantee of only Indian nationalised banks. Following this, interested foreign firms had asked for more time to fulfill the criteria and the tender was extended, said the MMRDA official.

Earlier, in 2019, the MMRDA had floated a tender for the procurement of 10 new rakes, but only two firms –CRRC (China) and BYD (american)– showed interest. Later, only one firm was responsive. Therefore, as per the tender condition, the bidding process was scrapped after working on it for an entire year.

The Free Press Journal, in January, reported how the specially designed guideway beams (tracks), where the monorails run, caused a hurdle in the procurement of monorail rakes. The Malaysia-based company SCOMI Engineering and its Indian partner Larsen & Toubro Ltd (L&T), were the two members of a consortium that constructed and operated India's first monorail network in Mumbai. Since the tracks are designed in such a way that only SCOMI manufactured rakes can run on them, MMRDA is having a hard time getting the rakes from other firms. If it wants other companies to provide the rakes, the beams will have to be modified and redesigned first. The MMRDA terminated the contract after ten years with SCOMI, which was running the operation from 2008 when the first phase of monorail was launched.

RA Rajeev, commissioner of MMRDA, said, "The manufacturing companies that can design such specific rakes across the world are few, and so it is finding it difficult to procure more rakes. Moreover, even if other manufacturers get ready to provide modified rakes, the cost eventually increases."

The 19.5-km monorail, which runs from Chembur to Jacob Circle via Wadala, was fully opened for commuters only in March 2020, almost 10 years after its construction started. In 2014, the MMRDA opened the first phase of 8.8 km from Chembur to Wadala. Due to the availability of only five rakes, the trip between two monorails runs at a gap of 22 minutes between Chembur and Jacob Circle.