NEW DELHI: General Electric and Alstom have won contracts worth a combined $5.6 billion (around Rs 37,100 crore) to supply India's railways with new locomotives, as the vast but dilapidated state-owned network looks to foreign companies to help it modernise.
France's Alstom has been picked to supply 800 electric locomotives and will also build a factory in Bihar, railways spokesman Anil Saxena told Reuters on Tuesday. The total value of the contract and the new factory is $3 billion (around Rs 20,000 crore), he said.
GE will meanwhile provide the railways with 1,000 diesel locomotives over the next 11 years, as well as investing $200 million (around Rs 1,300 crore) in a plant and maintenance sheds, in a deal worth $2.6 billion (around Rs 17,300 crore) that is the US company's biggest in India.
"In most of our growth markets, localisation is typically a key part of any infrastructure deal we do," Jamie Miller, chief executive officer of GE Transportation, told Reuters on Monday.
Keen to upgrade the country's creaking infrastructure, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has said it will invest $137 billion (around Rs 9 lakh crore) on its railways by 2020.
"It will bring this technology to a market that needs it. For them, this is really aligned with 'Make in India'," GE's Miller said.
But the system largely dates back to the British colonial era and successive governments has struggled to generate money to invest and modernise, leaving an ageing and congested network where trains run at an average speed of just 50 kilometres (31 miles) per hour.
The factories will be built through a public-private partnership model and structured as joint ventures with Indian Railways, which will own stakes in the plants.
France's Alstom has been picked to supply 800 electric locomotives and will also build a factory in Bihar, railways spokesman Anil Saxena told Reuters on Tuesday. The total value of the contract and the new factory is $3 billion (around Rs 20,000 crore), he said.
GE will meanwhile provide the railways with 1,000 diesel locomotives over the next 11 years, as well as investing $200 million (around Rs 1,300 crore) in a plant and maintenance sheds, in a deal worth $2.6 billion (around Rs 17,300 crore) that is the US company's biggest in India.
"In most of our growth markets, localisation is typically a key part of any infrastructure deal we do," Jamie Miller, chief executive officer of GE Transportation, told Reuters on Monday.
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Keen to upgrade the country's creaking infrastructure, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has said it will invest $137 billion (around Rs 9 lakh crore) on its railways by 2020.
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"It will bring this technology to a market that needs it. For them, this is really aligned with 'Make in India'," GE's Miller said.
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But the system largely dates back to the British colonial era and successive governments has struggled to generate money to invest and modernise, leaving an ageing and congested network where trains run at an average speed of just 50 kilometres (31 miles) per hour.
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The factories will be built through a public-private partnership model and structured as joint ventures with Indian Railways, which will own stakes in the plants.
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© Thomson Reuters 2015
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