No plans to privatise Indian Railways: Vaishnaw

Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Wednesday said the government has no plans to privatise the Indian Railways. Replying to a discussion on demands for grants for the railway ministry for 2022-23 in Lok Sabha, the minister also clarified that there is no plan to privatise freight corridors.

"When track, stations, engines, trains and signalling systems belong to railways, where is the question of privatisation?" the minister said. "There is no talk of privatisation.”

During the discussion, several MPs had accused the government of trying to privatise the railways. On recruitment in the railways, the minister said recruitment is going on for 1.14 lakh vacancies. However, the minister ruled out holding special recruitment drives for filling vacancies of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in Railways.

A total of 1,40,713 vacancies, including 20,944 SC and 10,930 ST, are presently under recruitment for level-1 to level-7, the minister said. The railways will continue to fulfil social obligations, he said, adding Rs 60,000 crore subsidy is provided on passenger fares.

Also Read — No need for special recruitment drives in Railways: Centre

On bullet train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, he said 99.7 per cent of the land acquisition in the Gujarat segment has been completed, and 750 pillars have been constructed. The work on the bullet train project is progressing at a rate of 8 kilometres per month, which will be increased to 10 kilometres a month.

The minister said efforts are being made to upgrade the speed of Vande Bharat trains to 200 km per hour from the current 160 km an hour.

Slamming opposition parties for criticising the functioning of the Indian Railways, Vaishnaw said railways was reeling under "policy paralysis" during the UPA regime but it was put back on track after Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power.

Ever since the NDA Government came to power at the Centre in 2014, the capital investment, which was one of the main problems, has increased. The capital expenditure, which was Rs 45,980 in 2014, was increased to over Rs 95,000 crore in 2019 and it was Rs 2.45 lakh crore in 2022-23, he said.

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