Seven years after then Railway Minister lalu Yadav in 2008 announced setting up of locomotive projects in Bihar’s Madhepura and Marhoura, the Centre is all set to sign MoU on Monday with multinational companies from United States and France to set up the `40,000-crore plants in joint venture with Indian Railways.

Union Ministers Arun Jaitley, Suresh Prabhu, Manoj Sinha, Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Ministers and Parliamentarians from Bihar and Ambassadors of the United States and  France would be present to grace the NDA Government’s mega “Make in India” initiative project.

The top executives of Joint Venture partners — GE Transport and Alstom, would be present in the formal Contract Agreement for the High Horse Power Hi-Tech Best-In-Class Modern locomotive Joint Venture Factory Projects (Electric locomotive Factory at Madhepura and Diesel locomotive Factory at Marhoura).

The Railway Ministry last month had awarded letters of Acceptance (loA) to the outsourced partners last month and the MoU was kept put on hold due to existence of model code of conduct for Bihar Assembly polls.

While the contract for DlF Marhoura has the US-based GE Global Sourcing India Pvt. ltd, the contract for Madhepura has been awarded to France-based  Alstom Manufacturing India limited. These two factories also mark the flow of FDI in the Railway sector.

DlF Marhoura will manufacture and supply modern diesel electric locomotives of 4,500 HP and 6,000 HP (which in combination can operate as 9,000 HP and 12,000 HP multiple units). ElF Madhepura will manufacture and supply modern electric locomotives of high horse power namely 12,000 HP. 

Under the agreement, 1,000 diesel locos will be manufactured in a period of 11 years with a basic cost of `14,656 crore and 800 electric locos in a period of 11 years at a basic cost of `19,904 crore. Taking into account the cost of setting up factories and maintenance facilities, these two projects together are worth `40,000 crore.

“These modern powerful state of the art locos will be useful for heavy haul freight operations and mega freight operations in the dedicated freight corridor and for pan India operation. These factories would lead to substantial development of ancillary manufacturing units, generation of direct and indirect employment and substantial development in the region,” said a railway official.