By Santanu Choudhury 

NEW DELHI--Indian Railways signed agreements with Alstom SA and General Electric Co. Monday for two multi-billion-dollar contracts for 1,800 locomotives to help upgrade the South Asian country's rusty railway infrastructure.

As announced earlier this month, Alstom will build 800 electric locomotives for about $3 billion, while GE will produce 1,000 diesel locomotives for $2.6 billion.

The two companies will set up factories in the Indian province of Bihar to build and deliver the engines to the Indian state-owned railway company. Deliveries will start in 2017 and are expected to continue for more than 10 years.

The contract-signing ceremony took place Monday night and was attended by India's railways minister Suresh Prabhu, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, and senior executives from the two companies.

Indian Railways will hold a 26% stake in each of the two joint ventures that will be making the locomotives. Alstom and GE will each hold the remaining 74% stakes.

   Write to Santanu Choudhury at santanu.choudhury@wsj.com 

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 30, 2015 10:36 ET (15:36 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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