Railways wasted crores on Vande Bharat prototype, finds CAG audit
Change in propulsion system led to the idling of materials and coach shells, says CAG report
CHENNAI: A goof-up by the Railway Ministry in 2021 in finalising the propulsion design for Train-18, the granddaddy of the Vande Bharat, resulted in the idling of Rs 54.57 crore worth of materials, including six coach shells at Integral Coach Factory (ICF), rusting since 2019.
The startling expose came to light in the recently released CAG report of the Compliance Audit of the Union government (Railways) for the year ending March 2022.
According to the report (copy available with DT Next), the Railways approved the production of 24 coaches by ICF for Train-18 under the 2017-18 production programme in February 2017. In February 2018, it approved the train layout drawings for a 16-coach prototype of Train-18 with 160 kmph speed potential and an eight-coach train set in the same year. The first and second 16-coach Train-18 prototypes were dispatched to Northern Railway in October 2018 and May 2019, respectively.
Railways also approved the production of 80 and 160 coaches by ICF under the production programme in 2018-19 and 2019-20. Accordingly, ICF floated a tender in June 2019 for procuring 204 sets of propulsion systems and manufactured six Train-18 coach shells at Rs 8.57 crore during May-November 2019.
In February 2021 the Railways placed orders for the purchase of propulsion equipment for 44 trainsets. ICF informed that the traction equipment for the train sets was different from its Train-18 prototype. ICF also alerted NR zone that some of its shells could not be put to effective use due to changes in the design of propulsion and bogies. The CAG report concluded that about Rs 46 crore of Rs 64 crore worth of material procured by ICF as per the earlier propulsion and bogie design remained unutilised.
The ICF General Manager also informed Railways later that the materials exclusive to Train-18 worth Rs 46 core remained unutilised and six shells manufactured in November 2019 at Rs 8.57 crore were idling as they did not conform to the design of coaches being used with revised propulsion and bogie design.
CAG faulted the ministry for not explaining why it changed the traction system after approving the production programme 2019-20, which rendered the old propulsion equipment and six shells unusable.