Indian Railways has invited bids for private participation to induct 151 trains (rakes) over 12 clusters through Public Private Partnership (PPP), Minister of Railways & Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said in Rajya Sabha in a written reply on Friday.
The minister said that due to the lack of capacity, nearly 5 crore dropped waiting list passengers were observed in 2019-20. To meet this gap, Indian Railways is already increasing production of Vande Bharat, Tejas, LHB, Vistadome etc types of coaches in trains.
He further mentioned that the existing passenger train services shall not be affected by the operation of train services through PPP mode and these will be in addition to the existing train services. “The operational infrastructure like track, signaling, Over Head Equipment (OHE), stations etc will remain with Indian Railways and will be used to run these trains. The Crew (Drivers and Guards) required for operation of trains through PPP mode shall be provided by Indian Railways, which
shall make Railway employee a vital part of PPP in passenger train operations project,” Vaishnaw added.
These trains shall offer services better than existing Rajdhani/Shatabdi types of trains which will include improved passenger comfort, efficient air conditioning with automatic temperature and humidity control, superior interiors and toilets, friendly access to differently abled (Divyangjan) passengers, GPS enabled passenger announcement system for on-board announcements for station arrivals, safety announcements etc.
Indian Railways will get haulage charges of Rs 512.31 per train km for 384 meter length (equal to 16 LHB coach) train for 2019-20 to be escalated annually and will also get a share of gross revenue collected by the private entity alongwith other charges as specified in the concession agreement.
The project entails an investment of more than ₹30,000 crore and associated benefits in terms of employment generation. The project encourages ‘Make in India’ initiative of Government of India as the private entity is required to manufacture around 75% of the trains domestically which is likely to encourage setting up of rail coach factory in India. The private entity is also required to set up a maintenance depot for each cluster and provide on-board services which would generate additional employment, the minister said.
