Croatia’s €677m Dugo Selo–Novska rail contract tops €620m tender estimate
Article Summary
Source-basedBy Oleksandr Batrak
Published October 12, 2026
HŽ Infrastruktura has signed a €677m contract with Afcons Infrastructure to rebuild and double-track Croatia’s 83km Dugo Selo–Novska railway, a price about 9% above the €620m tender estimate.
Representatives of HŽ Infrastruktura and Afcons Infrastructure Limited stand at the contract signing for the Dugo Selo–Novska railway. Photo: Vlada Republike Hrvatske / HŽ Infrastruktura
Damir Lončarić, president of the HŽ Infrastruktura management board, signed the construction contract in Zagreb on 1 October with two Afcons executives, Kshitiz Ravi Bhasker and Udai Veer Singh. Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Butković, who is also transport minister, attended the ceremony. Lončarić signed a separate works supervision contract with Eptisa Adria, represented by its director Josip Ćorić.
The works contract covers only part of the project budget. Afcons put its value at €677.07m excluding taxes. The government’s financing decision sets the total at €898.9m. Besides the works, that sum pays for supervision, property and land purchases, a reserve, project management and publicity, as recorded in a ruling by the State Commission for Supervision of Public Procurement Procedures.
Four bids, all above the €620m estimate
HŽ Infrastruktura opened the tender on 10 February 2025 with an estimated value of €620m. Price excluding VAT carried 85 of the 100 evaluation points, and the remaining 15 went to warranty periods for turnouts, the power supply and the signalling subsystems. All four bids were judged valid, and every one exceeded the estimate.
The infrastructure manager selected Afcons on 30 April 2026. A consortium of Ashoka Buildcon, Serneke International Group and Konkan Railway Corporation ranked second, while Turkey’s Cengiz İnşaat came third. On Railway Supply’s calculation, the Afcons price sits about €57m, or 9%, above the estimate.
Appeal cleared the way for signature
Cengiz challenged the selection on 18 May, contesting the evaluation of both the winning and the second-ranked bids. The commission rejected the appeal as unfounded on 10 July 2026, dismissing claims about how subcontractors were nominated and how foreign subsidies were declared. The European Commission had already closed its preliminary review of the tender under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation without opening an in-depth investigation.
In the same ruling, the commission found that HŽ Infrastruktura’s written assessment of corrective measures Afcons took after past incidents abroad lacked the substantive reasoning the law requires. Because more than two years had passed since most of those incidents, and the remaining case was not caused by Afcons, they no longer gave grounds for exclusion. Afcons’ bid names Končar, Dalekovod, Siemens Mobility Austria, Siemens d.d. and Elektrokem as subcontractors.
Dugo Selo–Novska railway contract timeline
Dugo Selo–Novska railway: procurement and contract milestones, 2025–2027Date
Step
10 February 2025
HŽ Infrastruktura opens the tender with an estimated value of €620m
September 2025
The European Commission closes its preliminary foreign-subsidy review without an in-depth investigation
30 April 2026
HŽ Infrastruktura selects Afcons; the decision is made public on 8 May
11 May 2026
Afcons says it has been chosen, at €677.07m excluding taxes
18 May 2026
Cengiz İnşaat appeals against the selection
10 July 2026
The State Commission for Supervision of Public Procurement Procedures rejects the appeal
1 October 2026
Construction and supervision contracts are signed in Zagreb
First half of 2027
Expected start of works, planned to last five years and ten months
The contract was signed almost 20 months after the tender opened and five months after Afcons was selected, a period that included the appeal. Dates for 2027 are plans, not completed steps.
Sources: ruling by the State Commission for Supervision of Public Procurement Procedures; Afcons Infrastructure press release; Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure.
Works on the 83km section
The line is divided into four subsections: Dugo Selo–Ivanić Grad, Ivanić Grad–Popovača, Popovača–Kutina and Kutina–Novska. Lončarić said the work includes rebuilding Ivanić Grad, Popovača, Kutina and Novska stations, grade-separating more than 30 level crossings and installing new traffic control and signalling equipment. Afcons lists overhead electrification and telecommunications in its scope, and Butković said some county roads will also be reconstructed.
Construction is scheduled to take five years and ten months, and Butković expects it to start in the first half of 2027. Singh, who is Afcons’ project director in Croatia, said this is the company’s first project in Europe, and Afcons describes it as its largest international order so far.
Last single-track gap on corridor RH1
Lončarić said Dugo Selo–Novska belongs to the core trans-European network and is the only part of that corridor still operating on a single track. Once it is rebuilt, he said, the whole international corridor RH1 will be double-track. Butković said the project is financed from the Connecting Europe Facility and the Competitiveness and Cohesion Programme.
Finishing the corridor will also require building the Okučani–Vinkovci section, for which HŽ Infrastruktura is preparing design documentation, the minister added. He put railway investment currently under way across Croatia at about €1.5bn, while Lončarić said around €6bn will go into renewing and modernising the network by 2035.
Full Article
By Oleksandr Batrak
Published October 12, 2026
HŽ Infrastruktura has signed a €677m contract with Afcons Infrastructure to rebuild and double-track Croatia’s 83km Dugo Selo–Novska railway, a price about 9% above the €620m tender estimate.
Representatives of HŽ Infrastruktura and Afcons Infrastructure Limited stand at the contract signing for the Dugo Selo–Novska railway. Photo: Vlada Republike Hrvatske / HŽ Infrastruktura
Damir Lončarić, president of the HŽ Infrastruktura management board, signed the construction contract in Zagreb on 1 October with two Afcons executives, Kshitiz Ravi Bhasker and Udai Veer Singh. Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Butković, who is also transport minister, attended the ceremony. Lončarić signed a separate works supervision contract with Eptisa Adria, represented by its director Josip Ćorić.
The works contract covers only part of the project budget. Afcons put its value at €677.07m excluding taxes. The government’s financing decision sets the total at €898.9m. Besides the works, that sum pays for supervision, property and land purchases, a reserve, project management and publicity, as recorded in a ruling by the State Commission for Supervision of Public Procurement Procedures.
Four bids, all above the €620m estimate
HŽ Infrastruktura opened the tender on 10 February 2025 with an estimated value of €620m. Price excluding VAT carried 85 of the 100 evaluation points, and the remaining 15 went to warranty periods for turnouts, the power supply and the signalling subsystems. All four bids were judged valid, and every one exceeded the estimate.
The infrastructure manager selected Afcons on 30 April 2026. A consortium of Ashoka Buildcon, Serneke International Group and Konkan Railway Corporation ranked second, while Turkey’s Cengiz İnşaat came third. On Railway Supply’s calculation, the Afcons price sits about €57m, or 9%, above the estimate.
Appeal cleared the way for signature
Cengiz challenged the selection on 18 May, contesting the evaluation of both the winning and the second-ranked bids. The commission rejected the appeal as unfounded on 10 July 2026, dismissing claims about how subcontractors were nominated and how foreign subsidies were declared. The European Commission had already closed its preliminary review of the tender under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation without opening an in-depth investigation.
In the same ruling, the commission found that HŽ Infrastruktura’s written assessment of corrective measures Afcons took after past incidents abroad lacked the substantive reasoning the law requires. Because more than two years had passed since most of those incidents, and the remaining case was not caused by Afcons, they no longer gave grounds for exclusion. Afcons’ bid names Končar, Dalekovod, Siemens Mobility Austria, Siemens d.d. and Elektrokem as subcontractors.
Dugo Selo–Novska railway contract timeline
Dugo Selo–Novska railway: procurement and contract milestones, 2025–2027Date
Step
10 February 2025
HŽ Infrastruktura opens the tender with an estimated value of €620m
September 2025
The European Commission closes its preliminary foreign-subsidy review without an in-depth investigation
30 April 2026
HŽ Infrastruktura selects Afcons; the decision is made public on 8 May
11 May 2026
Afcons says it has been chosen, at €677.07m excluding taxes
18 May 2026
Cengiz İnşaat appeals against the selection
10 July 2026
The State Commission for Supervision of Public Procurement Procedures rejects the appeal
1 October 2026
Construction and supervision contracts are signed in Zagreb
First half of 2027
Expected start of works, planned to last five years and ten months
The contract was signed almost 20 months after the tender opened and five months after Afcons was selected, a period that included the appeal. Dates for 2027 are plans, not completed steps.
Sources: ruling by the State Commission for Supervision of Public Procurement Procedures; Afcons Infrastructure press release; Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure.
Works on the 83km section
The line is divided into four subsections: Dugo Selo–Ivanić Grad, Ivanić Grad–Popovača, Popovača–Kutina and Kutina–Novska. Lončarić said the work includes rebuilding Ivanić Grad, Popovača, Kutina and Novska stations, grade-separating more than 30 level crossings and installing new traffic control and signalling equipment. Afcons lists overhead electrification and telecommunications in its scope, and Butković said some county roads will also be reconstructed.
Construction is scheduled to take five years and ten months, and Butković expects it to start in the first half of 2027. Singh, who is Afcons’ project director in Croatia, said this is the company’s first project in Europe, and Afcons describes it as its largest international order so far.
Last single-track gap on corridor RH1
Lončarić said Dugo Selo–Novska belongs to the core trans-European network and is the only part of that corridor still operating on a single track. Once it is rebuilt, he said, the whole international corridor RH1 will be double-track. Butković said the project is financed from the Connecting Europe Facility and the Competitiveness and Cohesion Programme.
Finishing the corridor will also require building the Okučani–Vinkovci section, for which HŽ Infrastruktura is preparing design documentation, the minister added. He put railway investment currently under way across Croatia at about €1.5bn, while Lončarić said around €6bn will go into renewing and modernising the network by 2035.