Bombardier to bid for upcoming metro rail projects

To supply rolling stock and new technology signalling for the Indian Railways

Bombardier Transportation, the rail equipment division of Canadian entity Bombardier Inc, will participate in the bidding for the next phases of the Mumbai Metro rail project.

It will also bid for Metro rail contracts in Nagpur, Pune, Bengaluru and Chennai, beside expansion of a line in Delhi.

Its chief country representative, Harsh Dhingra, told Business Standard: “We are pursuing our plan to increase (annual) revenue from the India business to $1 billion in the next five years from the present level of $300 million. Basically, we are looking at two areas, railways and Metros (meaning Metro rail projects). We have already set up factories in India.'' He noted there were metro rail plans for all cities with a population over two million.

"We are keen to tap opportunities to supply rolling stock and signalling for Metro services, and new types of rolling stock and signalling to Indian Railways (IR). The opportunities are great,'' he said.
 

According to Dhingra, Bombardier is quite bullish over "Make in India for India" and "Make in India for the World". "We have already started supplying trains to Australia, components to Australian and South African markets. Already delivered bogies, metro cars, traffic management system, signalling solution in India. Make In India is happening but more opportunities will come from railways further opening up," he said.

Dhingra, however, said the public private partnership in the railways has not yet taken place. "The risk, especially the ticket risk, has still been transferred to the private players. They will not take it. Obviously, private players will like IR to bear ticket risk and the balance everybody can take care of it," he said.