Daijiworld Media Network - New Delhi (MS)

New Delhi, Feb 10: Indian Railways has recently proposed a plan of allowing private players to run their trains on around 100 routes across the country mainly for tourism purpose. This was also mentioned by union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the recently presented budget for the fiscal 2020-21 also.

This plan of Indian Railways seconded by the union government, has received wide cheers from local and international private companies. They have showed eagerness to get onto Indian tracks as soon as possible. International players like Bombardier, Macquaire, Hyundai Rotem Company, Siemens AG and Alstom Transport have expressed their interest in the venture.

Indian Railways (file photo)

Indian companies which have showed a similar interest to run their private trains on Indian tracks include Adani Ports and SEZ, IRCTC, Essel Group, Tata Realty and Infrastructure and Hitachi India and South Asia.

Initially these trains will run on 100 routes, the list of which is already prepared by the Indian Railways. Around 150 trains will take the tracks to start with across India. These routes are divided into 10-12 clusters.

The routes which will see these private trains plying include, New Delhi to Howrah, Shalimar to Pune, New Delhi to Patna, Chennai to New Delhi and Mumbai to New Delhi. According to Indian Railways, there will be a gap of 15 minutes after the start of journey of such private trains on a route on which even the normal trains will run, so that there will be no delays and stoppage for the private trains.

The rule stipulated by the Indian Railways also says that the private passenger trains are allowed to run on a maximum speed of 160 kmph and will have minimum 16 coaches. Maximum number of coaches will be same as the longest passenger train running on that particular route.

With regards to the train fare, Indian Railways had made it clear that it is left to the discretion of the private companies running the trains. In addition, all the aspects of the operations like financing, procuring, operating and maintaining the private trains will have to be done by the respective private companies owning them.