Indian Railways – Tendering and Procurement Opportunities

Railways were First Introduced in India in 1853 and ran between Bombay and Thane. In 1951, all the systems were nationalised to form one unit – The Indian Railways. IR or Indian Railways was operated and owned by the Government of India through the MofR or Ministry of Railways.

The state owned enterprise, Indian Railways is one of the largest network of railways in the world, controlling both suburban and long distance rail systems on a Multi-Gauge network of narrow, metre and broad gauges. Covering over 115,000 kms of tracks over 7,500 stations and a route of 65,000 kms, Indian Railways is one of the Strongest networks of Railways in the World.

Although Indian Railways manufactures its heavy engineering components and rolling stocks in one of its six Production Units or Manufacturing plants, it procures a number of its components from private sector companies through Railway Tendering. 

The Ministry of Railways has 11 Public Undertakings under its control which bring out tenders from time to time.  With a large network and increasing need to expand the railway network, the ministry often requires a manufacturing units from private sector companies which it gets through the tendering process.

Railway tendering, like most government sector tendering requires the companies to bid for a tender. It is one of the most transparent tendering process in India as it provides an equal platform to all the companies based on its objectives and the cost factor .

Reading the Railway tendering guidelines is highly essential in the process of tendering as all the companies bidding for a certain tender need to pass all the criteria mentioned in the guidelines. It involves a number of different criteria such as cost factor, timelines and the specification of the manufactured products.

The process of selecting the right bid is done by the Ministry of Railways directly for all the eleven undertakings in an unbiased and transparent selection process "indian railways tender".

Each of the public sector bids is carefully measured on the same objectives and platforms without any bias. Private sector companies, whose bids win government tenders do so because of their expertise and competence in providing the right bid to the tendering board committee. The proficient companies also take the precaution for preparing a tender document which caters to all the requirements mentioned in the government tender. This gives them a greater advantage over the other private sector bids.