Indian Railways To Introduce 150 Private Trains By 2023-24; First Pilot Run To Be Held On 4 October

Indian Railway Board's chairman Vinod Kumar Yadav revealed yesterday in an interview with The Economic Times that by 2023-24, as many as 150 private trains will be running on the tracks of the national railways.

Yadav further shared that the first pilot train will begin to ply on the network from the upcoming 4 October itself. It will be a Tejas Express which will be operated by IRCTC on a pilot basis. IRCTC has also been given another Tejas Express, whose schedule is still to come out.

The privatised Tejas Express will be providing travel insurance of Rs 25 lakh and cab services to the passengers. And, there will be a host of other such state-of-the-art perks and facilities attached which are usually not found on trains running currently.

These private trains which will all be running on the Indian rail network by 2023-24 will be allowed to bring in better and newer train sets from foreign nations, or even purchase or lease the train sets from Indian railways and its coach making units. This would bring in newer technologies.

Yadav also claimed that with the two Dedicated Freight Corridors, eastern and western, set to be completed by 2021, Indian railways will be able to run trains on time and also increase their speeds up to 160 kmph. This, according to Yadav would allow the railways to introduce trains on demand, making waiting lists a thing of the past.