Railways seeks private investment for running passenger trains

Indian Railways has invited proposals to shortlist bidders and allow private companies run 151 modern passenger trains over 109 Origin Destination (OD) pairs of routes. The project would entail private sector investment of about ₹30,000 crore.

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Key-Points

It has invited Request for Qualifications proposals, for scrutiny of vendor capabilities, from those who can bring modern trains for operations on existing rail infrastructure. The Railway Board has set a tentative schedule for private train operations, expected to begin in 2023 and in 12 clusters.

The present invitation for private operators to submit qualification bids for 151 trains would be, in the assessment of the Railway Board, only for a fraction of the total train operations — 5% of the 2,800 Mail and Express services operated by Indian Railways.

Earlier, in 2019, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC), in which the government is the majority shareholder, was given pilot Tejas trains operations in the New Delhi-Lucknow, and Mumbai-Ahmedabad sectors. These were the first trains allowed to be run by a ‘non-Railway’ operator. The present move takes another step towards competing passenger train operations, bringing new-generation trains and attracting investments of an estimated ₹30,000 crore.