India’s Jindal Steel and Power Ltd(JSPL) is the lone Indian company among the eight bidders competing for Indian Railways’ first global tender to supply 487,000 tonnes of rails, as per reports.
The other bidders are Japanese trader Sumitomo Corp , East Metals AG, Austrian company Voestalpine Schienen, CRM Hong Kong Trading Ltd, Atlantic Steels, French company British Steel France Rail and China-based Angang Group International, according to the official report.
The tender was opened earlier on 22 Dec and this tender will end the monopoly of state-owned Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) in supplying rails to the world’s fourth largest rail network.
However, the steel and rail ministries, have been head on head over the state-run network’s decision to buy rails from overseas, despite assurances of supply from SAIL and JSPL.
According to the minutes of a committee meeting held on 21 Dec, the railways slashed its tender size by more than 30% to 487,000 tonnes of rails after SAIL said it would scale up supply to 950,000 tonnes in 2017-18 and 1.5 million tonnes in 2018-19.
In a recent meeting, an inter-ministerial committee on domestically manufactured iron and steel products in government procurement, headed by Steel Secretary Aruna Sharma, gave a waiver to the tender on condition that 20% of additional procurement would be from domestic producers to boost Make in India. This clause could help Jindal Steel win its first contract with the railways.
PM’s office recently asked all government departments to prioritize the use of local products in state projects, after domestic companies objected to the tender by the railways.
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