Private train services by April ’23: Rly board chief
NEW DELHI: Private train services on 109 routes will begin by April 2023 and the operators will decide their fares based on competitive pricing, railway board chairman VK Yadav said on Thursday, a day after the process for opening up one of the government’s most prominent enterprises began for the first time.
“Fares will be based on competition with other modes of transport in the same segment including airfares and fares of air-condition buses,” said Yadav. “I do not think that the fares fixed by private train operators will be too high ultimately if they want to keep financial viability.” Yadav said the fares of the 95% trains that the national carrier will operate will not be increased. “The poor will get a huge advantage with this. At the same price, they will get better facilities as technology and safety will improve.”
The railway ministry on Wednesday issued a request for qualification (RFQ) for running 151 trains on the 109 routes. It laid down specific conditions needed to be met to “introduce modern technologies and world-class services” for one of India’s most popular modes of transport that has been outpaced by the demands of a rapidly growing economy in recent decades.
Yadav said the railways is incurring losses in the passenger segment and it aims to meet its expenditure through a minimum guaranteed cost that the private train operator will have to pay to the national carrier.
“Bids have been designed in such a way that railway will be able to recover the cost that is the minimum guaranteed cost that the private train operator will have to pay to us….basically we cross-subsidise with the freight segment. In this particular project what we have devised is that railways is not going to lose anything and ultimately the minimum cost which the private operator is going to pay will be able to meet the expenditure of the railways and whatever revenue we get over and above will be profit for the railways,” he said.
Yadav referred to the bidding process and added they have initiated the timeline in such a way that they should be able to open the tender sometime in February-march and finalise it in April.
Yadav said private operators have to buy and maintain the train sets and they will be procured under the Make in India policy. “…We have had few meetings with the stakeholders and will hold a pre-bid conference also after 15-20 days,” he said.
The railway ministry on Wednesday said the planned investment will come to around ₹30,000 crore and the trains shall be designed for a maximum speed of 160 kmph to reduce journey time.
Yadav said they will follow the Make in India policy guidelines when asked whether Chinese firms will be allowed to bid amid growing tensions between the two countries.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi criticised the privatisation plan and said the government has snatched lifeline of the poor.
“Rail is the only lifeline of the poor and the government is taking it away from them,” he tweeted.