Railway rolls out ₹22,500-cr projects for private players

In a bid to put rail transportation services on fast-track, the Railway Board has unveiled an ambitious plan to allow private trains on the Indian Railways network. The move was recently sanctioned by NITI Aayog and the Indian Railways with a draft plan for an estimated investment of ₹22,500 crore. According to the plan, the private train operators will be allowed to charge passengers market-linked railway fares while the Indian Railways will provide track and signaling infrastructure and take haulage charges from the private operators. The cabinet has already given its nod to Indian Railways for upgrading the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata routes to 160 km/h and the routes identified for the operations of private trains mostly fall on these two lines of the Golden Quadrilateral. Private operators will be allowed to operate their own trains as per the standards set by Indian Railways. In this regard, the NITI Aayog has listed 10-12 clusters with over 100 routes that will enable private operators to run a minimum of 16-coach trains on these routes and the move will reduce the number of waitlisted passengers as well with over 150 private trains on 100 routes.