NEW DELHI: The Indian Railways is planning to hand over operations of more trains on many important routes to private players. The decision was a part of the 100-day agenda of the railways.
According to a railway ministry official, a meeting of senior officials has been called on September 27 under the chairmanship of member, traffic, Railway Board, to decide on the operational issues of the handover.
Principal Executive Director of Coaching, A Madhusudhan Reddy, in a letter dated September 23 to all principal chief operations managers of central, northern, north-central, southeastern, southern and south-central railway zones said the ministry had proposed the handing over of operations to private players as a part of the 100-day action plan to ensure world-class passenger amenities.
“It is contemplated that the private operators shall induct modern passenger trains and operate them on paths allocated to them on payment of haulage charges. Thus in order to prepare the RFQ (request for quote) and concession documents, it is necessary to identify the routes and the number of services that can be run,” the letter said.
Earlier, the railways had announced operations of two Tejas Express trains — Lucknow-New Delhi and Mumbai-Ahmedabad — to IRCTC.
The first such Tejas Express will be flagged off on October 4. The railways is mulling to give trains to private operators on inter-city services on 14 routes.