Railways receive 120 applications from 15 firms for running private trains

The Indian Railways has received a total of 120 applications from 15 firms including L&T, GMR and Welspun in response to its Request for Quotation inviting private players to run trains on key routes, the railway ministry announced on Wednesday.

The railway ministry on July 1 began the formal process of allowing private trains on 109 routes -- a process that aims to, for the first time, to open up one of the government’s most prominent enterprises that has in recent decades been outpaced by the demands of a rapidly growing economy.

The firms which have made the applications for the clusters include Arvind Aviation, BHEL, Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarrriles, S.A, Cube Highways and Infrastructure III Pvt Ltd, Gateway Rail Freight Limited, GMR Highways Limited, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited, IRB Infrastructure Developers Limited.

The others are L&T Infrastructure Development Projects Limited, Malempati Power Private Limited, Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited, PNC Infratech Ltd, RK Associates and Hoteliers Pvt Ltd, Sainath Sales and Services Pvt Ltd and Welspun Enterprises Limited. Overall, 14 Indian firms and one Spanish firm are in the race to run private trains in India.

In its pre-bidding meeting held in August, a total of 23 firms including Bombardier Transportation India, Siemens Limited, Alstom Transport India Ltd had evinced interest.

A total of 120 applications have been received for the 12 Clusters, from 15 applicant firms.

“It may be noted that the Ministry of Railways (MOR) had invited Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for private participation in operation of passenger train services over 12 Clusters comprising 140 Origin Destination pair of routes through introduction of 151 modern Trains to increase high quality trains operated on the network,” the ministry said.

This includes 12 applications each for the Delhi 2 and Mumbai 2 clusters, 11 for the Bengaluru cluster, 10 applications each for the Prayagraj, Secunderabad, Jaipur and Delhi 1 cluster and nine each for Chandigarh, Howrah, Patna, Mumbai 1 and Chennai.

The Railways had invited Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for private participation in operation of passenger train services over 12 clusters comprising 140 origin-destination pair of routes through introduction of 151 modern trains to increase high quality trains operated on the network.

The ministry in July issued what is known as a request for qualification (RFQ) for private companies to run 151 trains spread over these routes, laying down specific conditions that will need to be met in a move that is meant to “introduce modern technologies and world class services” for one of India’s most popular modes of transport.

The railways plan to introduce private trains on its network in phases, with the first dozen due to start running in the 2023-24 financial year and all 151 by 2027. According to the railway ministry’s projections, the transporter will select the companies that will run the private trains by April 2021; the first 12 are expected to start plying by 2023-24, followed by 45 more in FY 2024-25, the next 50 in FY 2025-26 and the last 44 by 2026-27.

According to the ministry, the planned investment will come to around Rs 30,000 crore, and a majority of the rakes (70%) will have to be manufactured in India; private entities cleared to run the train services shall be responsible for financing, procuring, operating and maintaining the trains.

The trains will be designed to run at a maximum speed of 160 kmph. The ministry expects a reduction in journey time by around 10-15% at 130 kmph and around 30% at 160 kmph. Initially, they will run at 130 kmph and are slated to run at 160 kmph by March 2024.