BENGALURU: It was a mad race to the finish line for Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) to manufacture the first three-car set for Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd due to a revised deadline. Thanks to spare parts of Metro cars available with BMRCL, the job was accomplished within 11 months.
The New Indian Express went around the BEML factory on Wednesday before the formal official handover took place. The Rs1,421-crore contract for 150 coaches was signed between BEML and BMRCL in March 2017 with the deadline for the first handover fixed as June 2018.
BEML had earlier readied 135 train sets for Namma Metro. This was done as part of an international consortium involving BEML, Hyundai Rotem of South Korea, Mitsubishi Electric, Japan, and Mitsubishi Corporation (BRMM), Japan. “This is the first time we are manufacturing coaches independently for BMRCL,” a highly placed source said.
“Since the BMRCL had spare parts at their depots in Baiyappanahalli and Peenya, we had the basic infrastructure. Otherwise, we could never have done it before June,” he added. The launch of the GST regime posed another new challenge. “Before that, we could just accept the spares and provide a delivery statement. But everything had to be documented extensively for their use under the new tax regime,” a source said. Delivery of the remaining 147 coaches has a June 2019 deadline.
According to the Chairman and Managing Director of BMRCL, D K Hota, “Each of the coaches will cost the BMRCL only `8.9 crore. This is cheaper than the Rs 11.5 crore per coach they had paid for the first set of 150 coaches ordered for Phase-I.”The intermediate car unit was taken on a trailer vehicle to Baiyappanahalli yard on Wednesday to begin integrating it with an existing train.