Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday denied reports of privatisation of railways, saying such a move would not happen in the future.
Speaking at the News18 India Chaupal event, Vaishnaw said: “There is no plan for railway privatisation. It’s a huge and very complex system.” The minister added that for him, direct feedback from passengers and tea stall vendors was valuable and he appreciated it.
By clearing the air on privatisation, Vaishnaw has taken the line his predecessor Piyush Goyal took. Goyal too had clarified that the carrier would never go into private hands. “I assure you that the Railways is India’s property and it will be never privatised. It is a property of every Indian and will remain so.”
However, he had mentioned that private investment should be encouraged for more efficient functioning of Indian Railways.
Vaishnaw had earlier too sought to quell buzz about railways. In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, he had said that to bridge the gap in capital funding, Public-Private Partnership mode is envisaged to facilitate faster development of network, manufacturing of rolling stocks and delivery of passenger and freight services. He said it is estimated that railway infrastructure would need an investment of Rs 50 lakh crore between 2018 and 2030. He informed that there is also a proposal to use PPP mode for inducting modern rakes to run passenger trains on select routes with an objective to provide improved service delivery to passengers.
Last year, the Railway Ministry had invited Request For Qualifications (RFQ) for the participation of the private sector for the operation of passenger trains over 109 OD pairs of Indian Railways routes through the introduction of 151 modern trains. The Railway Ministry had earlier informed that the 109 OD pairs have been formed into 12 clusters across the network of Indian Railways. Each of these trains will consist a minimum of 16 coaches. The project, which is said to be the first such initiative of private investment for running passenger trains over the Indian Railways network, would entail private sector investment of around Rs 30,000 crore.
The Indian Railways plays an integral role running the world’s fourth largest rail network in the world—across 64,000 route km, ferrying nearly 23 million passengers per day in over 13,000 passenger trains daily. With a workforce of nearly 1.3 million, it is also one of the largest employers in the world.
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