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Indian Railways’ Tejas Express Rake (Rajendra B Aklekar/Wikimedia Commons)
Indian Railways formally kick-started process to allow private players to operate passenger trains with the state transporter floating the request for qualifications (RFQs) seeking private investment of about Rs 30,000 crore. This is the first-of- its-kind initiative in the Indian rail sector.
The ambitious move entails private players to operate passenger services over 109 routes across the country, and has the potential to herald state-of-the-art technology in train operation.
The maiden attempt by the state-run transporter is expected to evince keen interest among top companies in infrastructure and transportation sectors, including Tata and Adani groups. Besides, some global players are also likely to enter the race for the ambitious private train operation project cleared by the Empowered Group of Secretaries.
Spread over 12 clusters, there would be about 151 new-age trains with modern amenities, and which would ply on 109 identified destinations. Mumbai, Delhi, Howrah, Patna, Jaipur, Chennai, Prayagraj, Secunderabad, Chandigarh, and Bengaluru are major clusters for which the players are keen to run 16-coach trains.
A day after inviting the request for qualifications (RFQ) from private entities for running 151 trains on 109 pairs of routes, Railway Board Chairman V.K. Yadav on Thursday (Jul 2) said the private train operations would begin by April 2023 and the fares in these trains would be competitive with air fares on similar routes.
Here is a full list of arrival, departure times, days of running of proposed private Trains
Cluster 1: Mumbai – 1
Cluster 2: Mumbai – 2
Cluster 3: Delhi-1
Cluster 5: Chandigarh
Cluster 6: Howrah
Cluster 7: Patna
Cluster 8: Prayagraj
Cluster 9: Secunderabad
Cluster 10: Jaipur
Cluster 11: Chennai
Cluster 12: Bengaluru
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