Delhi-Meerut RRTS: Why India has given million dollar project to Chinese firm

 नमस्कार दोस्तों, In today's blog we will talk about a tender that India has given to Chinese company. What is this project? Where is this project? And why Indian govt has given this million dollar project to Chinese company at this time when India-China relations are not good.

delhi-meerut-rrts
Pic: NCRTC

India-China relations are not normal and have become awry due to border dispute since May 2020, when Galwan valley incident happened. Our 20 soldiers have been killed by Chinese army. There were many campaigning for boycott of Chinese products. Indian govt also banned many Chinese apps. Till present date India-China relations have not become normal and army of both countries is standing face to face on LAC. Even in such times, Indian govt gave tender to Chinese company? We will discuss everything about the tender. Let's start with me.

We are talking about Delhi-Meerut RRTS (Regional Rapid Transit System). Semi-high speed train will run from Sarai Kale Khan, Delhi to Modipuram, Meerut having 22 stations with total length 82.15 km. Total project cost is approximately Rs 30274 crore and PM Modi laid the foundation stone of this corridor on March 2019. Project is expected to complete till 2025. More than half route will be elevated and rest of the route will be underground.

This whole controversy has been started in Jun 2020; Indian govt took out the tender for an underground portion of 5.6 km in Jun 2020. Many companies submitted their bids, but the bid with lowest cost came from Chinese company: STEC (Shanghai Tunnel Engineering Company). There were many protests against Chinese company. Seeing all this, Indian government put it on hold. But now Government has given tender to STEC and NCRTC (Authority for Delhi-Meerut RRTS project) said: We have to follow some procedures and guidelines. That's why tender is awarded to STEC.


Let's understand in short what are these procedures and guidelines. In this project, Indian govt took 50% (approximately) loan from international banks: ADB, NDB (BRICS Bank) and AIIB. Out of three banks, HQ of two is in China and Chinese govt has influence on them. At the time of loan approval, it has been decided that tenders will be given to company whose bid would be lowest cost and there will be no discrimination while giving the tender. Hence, tender has to be given to a Chinese company.

 

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Er. Kamal Chauhan

Founder of World Current Affairs. Inspired to make things looks better.

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