Private trains will bring no harm to existing train services, says Railways

Allaying fears that the Railways network was being handed over to private parties, Railway Board Chairman V K Yadav on Tuesday said that proposed private passenger trains operations are less than 5% of existing passenger trains.

The railways at present operate over 2800 mail/express trains in its network and the same will continue to operate by national transporter and the number will be increased as per demand. Keeping in mind of poor, the railways itself will fix the tariffs for these trains, Railway Board Chairman V K Yadav told reporters here.

He was speaking to media a day after the Indian Railways formally kickstarted its plans to allow private entities to operate passenger trains on its network by inviting requests for qualifications (RFQ) for participation on 109 pairs of routes through 151 modern trains.

Private train operations in the country will begin by April 2023, and the ticket fares in these trains will be competitive with airfares on similar routes.

"The private operators are allowed to bring their own train sets and maintained by them. Private train operations are likely to begin by April 2023, all coaches will be procured under Make in India policy. Fares in private trains will be competitive and prices on other modes of transport like airlines, buses will have to be kept in mind," he said.

Yadav said that the private operators will also pay fixed haulage charges for paths, stations, access to railway infrastructure, and charges for electricity consumed.

It will also share revenue with Indian Rawailys through competitive bidding.

The private entity has to ensure 95 % punctuality and record not more than one failure per lakh kilometer of travel.

"If any performance indicators are not met by private players in passenger train operations they will be penalised," said Yadav.

The introduction of private trains in addition to existing trains to cater the increasing demand with quality service. In 2019 total of 8.4 billion passengers traveled in trains while the number will be 30 billion by 2030. Keeping with demand, the railways will continue to introduce new trains.

The introduction of private players would also mean that trains will be available on-demand and that passenger waitlist will decrease.

During the pre-lockdown period IRCTC, a catering, and ticketing arm of railways operated three trains-New Delhi-Lucknow, Mumbai -Ahmedabad, and Ujjain-Varanasi. Since all the three trains operated successfully with occupancy was more than 70%, the railways wanted to hand over more routes to private companies, said the official.